The Sun.
London, England, 1853-07-20 00:00:00

vering toil. Like knowledge, too, it is certain to be
found by those who seek it aright. If not found at the
mines, it may be found elsewhere. If not found in the
shape of nuggets, the hard-working man will always find
it in the shape of excellent wages. We repeat, therefore,
let all who cannot or will not work remain where they
are, since there is nothing here worth their coming for;
let all who can and will work lose no time in joining us,
for there is here everything to cheer and prosper tbem.

STATE OF AFFAIRS IN NEW SOUTH
WALES.

(From the Times.)

Our readers will peruse with very mixed satisfaction
an article from the Sydney Morning Herald, written
with the characteristic ability of the Australian press,
and describing the present state of affairs in New South
Wales. The remarks therein are expressly intended for
the benefit of readers in the mother country, and, as far
as they relate to the state of the market, as they are
dated April 20, they refer to the mercantile transactions
on this side the ocean at the date of last autumn. Recent
and brief as the gold history of New South Wales un-
doubtedly is, and rapid as is the pace of events where
gold is the motive power, last autumn is not yet out of
date in those annals. A ship of very ordinary sailing
powers, nay, a regular tub, might have been chartered
on the day that her Majesty opened this present session ;
it might have been filled with a selected cargo, and sailed
many days after the time it was advertised, and yet have
delivered every article on board at Sydney before the
20th of April, the date of these remarks in the Sydney
paper. Our readers will remember that the great rush
of emigrants set in, not last year, but theyearbefore that ;
and that last autumn Australia, its increased population,
its weekly produce of a hundred thousand ounces, its
increasing demands, and possible famine, were old stories
in everybody's mouth. If ever there was ample warning
then—if ever the British merchant had everything made
plain to the meanest capacity, it was in this instance.
Yet, we read in the last Sydney journal received in this
country that our merchants at home had as yet done
little to meet the extraordinary capacity of the Aus-
tralian market :—" The disproportion between the de-
mands of our market and, its supplies in almost every
description of goods was never so trying and so great as
it is at this moment. Hard goods and soft goods,
luxuries and necessaries, articles for eating and drinking,
articles for wearing and using, are at the minimum of
stock and maximum of price. Advances on cost price
in England, taken not partially but generally, not as the
exceptions of trade, but as its rule, were never so
enormous as now."

Now, we are aware that the evil was aggravated to
an extent with which the Australian public were neces-
sarily unacquainted by the long prevalence of westerly
winds in these seas during last autumn, causing at one
time the detention of no less than 2,000 sail in the ports
and roads of this country. That circumstance, how-
ever, had a twofold effect on Australia, for, while it kept
down the supply of goods, it most opportunely checked
also the influx of immigrants. But we hold that where-
ever there are people, mouths to be fed, limbs to be
clothed, hands to be furnished with tools, there it is the
office of the British merchant to place his goods in suffi-
cient quantity, and that if the people were then at Syd-
ney, last April the 20th, all ready to consume, and ready
to pay any price, the British merchant ought to have
seen his customers afar off and beforehand. He ought to
have known, too, what the Australian writers insist
upon with great force, the difference in the consumption
of people whose industry and whose wants are
stimulated by an abundance of gold. The population of
Australia—which last autumn we know to have been
immensely increased—are not the wretched creatures
we had sent out as convicts, or the scarcely less un-
happy beings who had been struggling through all sorts
of difficulties, moral and external, and who found them-
selves at last packed rather close on board an emigrant
vessel some time last summer. They had landed in a
new country, and entered a new phase of existence, cal-
culated, if not to refine, at least to quicken and invigo-
rate. They were working hard, receiving incredible
wages, eating, drinking, wearing, and generally spend-
ing to an extent they had never dreamt of before.
Compare such customers with the British labourer,
delighted to get one handsomely embroidered smock
frock, one pair of well-clouted boots, perhaps two pair
of worsted stockings, and other things in propor-
tion, in the whole twelvemonth, his wife and children
being still more moderate in their wants. A hundred
thousand within a day's journey of the diggings are
in a very different position from the like number either
settled in our pauperised rural districts, or fighting their
way through the vast and severe competition of the
metropolis. All this is understood in the United States,
says the Australian writer, but not in English count-
ing-houses. In an auriferous country at least 100 per
cent, must be added to the rate of consumption, and if
the increase of population is 40 per cent., the total
increase of consumption becomes 140 per cent.—a pro-
portion which has evidently beaten the flagging con-
ceptions of our English counting-houses. The excuse
for this rather discreditable backwardness is, that on

former occasions the markets had been glutted. That
is ever the cry of the incompetent. If they were
glutted before in Australia, as they have often been
glutted there and elsewhere, and as they seem
always to be glutted in the West Indies and in the
South American ports, there must be reasons for it,
which there are not in this instance. It is the business
of a merchant to find out when the market is likely to
be glutted, and when it is not, and to be always on the
qui vivo for opportunities such as that which he appears
to have let pass by in the present instance. The bane
of every commercial community is that supineness which
ever leads the younger or more self-indulgent and self-
confident members to rest content with things as they
are, to repose on the labours and rely on the knowledge
of those who have gone before. They think they have
nothing to do but just to undergo a little routine, and 10
per cent. will pour in as fast and as certain as 3 per cent.
from the funds. Their trade is ever finding out new chan-
nels, which it is the business of the merchant to discover
for himself at the risk of being left high and dry.
But, even with this little drawback on the national
character, it is satisfactory to learn that as yet there is
no glut of anything in Australia ; no glut of any article
of commerce ; no glut of labourers, " mechanics, espe-
cially carpenters, masons, bricklayers, plasterers, black-
smiths, cabinetmakers—in short, all persons employed in
rearing and furnishing human habitations." Just now
there is no redundance of these classes in this country,
and if rain and war should hold off there will be rather a
scarcity of hands than otherwise for the next twelve-
month at least. Here are the good times that all
have been hoping for, and that seem to have come
upon us at last unprepared. It appears, indeed,
that they have their difficulties, for under no cir-
cumstances whatever can all mankind grow rich at
once. Wealth is nothing more nor less than the
command of labour, and it is not in the power of
any human event, or any train of causes, to give
all men more command of labour, and at the same
time to make all men more independent of labour.
The great change at hand, both in England and in the
colonies, is that industry and skill are likely to be more
sure of their deserts. But this can only be accomplished
at the expense of the indolent and stupid, whether in
the present enjoyment of income or not. Our Australian
contemporary says that " drones had better stay at
home." That is the usual language of colonists, but it
is very hard to say whether drones had better go or
stay, for England is no place for them, and it is likely to
be worse. We presume there will be fewer drones when
they will no longer be able to find so many excuses for
depending on the aid of their neighbours. We are
really inclined to think that the days of professed drones
—that is, of persons who in health and strength avowedly
expect to be maintained by society in considerable com-
fort, are now gone by, and that professed paupers, whe-
ther high or low, will be remembered only as we remem-
ber wolves, bandits, and other public nuisanc es.