The Sun.
London, England, 1853-12-26 00:00:00

LONDON, MONDAY EVENING, DECEMBER 26, 1853.

PUBLIC WORKS IN AUSTRALIA.

Nothing, in the progress of a new country, is a
more striking and important sign of-advance than
the first beginnings of public enterprise. The keen
struggle for existence absorbs the energies of the
early settler. He has to hew and to burn that he
may clear the ground on which to rear a precarious
harvest, or he explores with his cattle and herds
the unknown solitudes of plains and valleys. He
conquers nature, he seizes on the advantages she
offers, and overcomes the obstacles interposed in
his course. He occupies' the land that is to be his
home ; the safest harbour is selected, the best
Water carefully looked for, a sheltered site for a
town secured, and the capital of the colony springs
up, while homesteads and stations begin to dot
the surface of the interior. This is the first stage
of colonial history. The second is characterised
by the introduction of an organised Government,
by the establishment of law and order, by the de-
velopment of local resources, and the growth of a
foreign trade. Public buildings arise to adorn the
capital ; associations are formed to promote objects
'of general interest, or to carry on in common the
pursuits of commerce. But as yet the necessities
of the day are still the first objects of all. The
colony has to be made, its place has to be won by
the exertions that are expended to promote it, and
by the capabilities of which it can be shown to be
possessed. If 'the flood of emigration sets in
strongly, so that fresh elements of wealth are con-
tinually added, -and if circumstances are peculiarly
favourable, a colony may make an advance in its
second stage with as marvellous a rapidity as has
been exhibited in the province of Victoria. And
before we can distinctly say that the second stage
has passed away, the third has begun. The time
has come when men gain somethrig like a clear
conception of the future destiPi4 of the country
they inhabit. Sure of their own position, they in-
vestigate the relations they occupy to their neigh-
bours and friends. Individuals act ton-ether for a
remote and general object, and not only to further
private and particular interests. Undertakings
are entered on, the success of which is wholly de-
pendent on new wants being certain to arise in
the community, if means of ministering to them
are provided, while these means are necessarily of
a nature that demands concert in action, and. a
wide appreciation of the less obvious interests of
the society. And such enterprises, when crowned
with success, bring with them not only the fruits
which are their primary object, but also a sense,
perpetually heightened, of public confidence, and
a desire for public ad vantage. If fair play is given to
the wishes of the colonist, the form of Government
becomes adapted to the altered mood of public
opinion, and power from being external and merely
executive becomes local and deliberative. This is
the stage on which Australia is now entering, and
though the very peculiar conditions of her progress
have enabled her to outstrip all calculation, yet in
her rapid advance we may see compressed into the
compass of a few years what, in colonies of a
slower growth, it has taken generations to unfold.
Public works of every kind are being urged for-
ward with an energy and rapidity that almost out-
herods the Americans. Schemes are being set on
foot which, if originating in a private source, have
yet a wide and public aim. The eye of the specu-
lator both travels on to the possibilities of the
future, and, traversing the artificial boundaries of
his own peculiar district, sveeps over the wide ex-
tent
to which the natural conformation of the
whole territory conducts it. Thus province is
contemplated as united to Trovince, and something
of a national character seems to be impressed upon
the whole. We might watch with interest and ad-
miration the public works of Australia, if we saw
reflected in them nothing but the untiring perse-
verance and ind.omitabbi energy of the race ; but
such feelings are heightened to a tenfold degree
when we are thus led to perceive the opening of
a new phase of the colonial history, and to detect
the first germs of a new, though perhaps subject,
nationality._ _ _

Of all such public works railways are by far the
most important. We have already learned from
America how steam can be used as the pioneer of
civilisation, and how rapidly it unites the distant
and heterogeneous members of a great society.
Railways in Australia are still in their rudest in-
fancy, and are the creatures of promise rather than
of performance. But still enough has been done,
and is doing, towards their formation, to serve as
an indication of the stage of its history on which
this great empire of the south is entering ; and if
We watch their intended course we learn, with a
clearness not otherwise to be attained, the natural
facilities and difficulties of a country that is strange
to us. Its soil, its rivers, its declivities and eleva-
tions, are presented to us as viewed by the light of
the greatest local experience ; and nothing cm be
more suggestive of what our Australian colonies are
than to trace the course of intended railways and
ascertain the purposes they aro meant to sulmerve.
We cannot hero enter into the details of the schemes
which have been either projected or partly realised,
but we can assure our readers that any one who
attempts to make himself master of those that have
received the sanction of public approval in tie co-
limy will find himself amply repaid. In South-
Eastern Australia, for instance, we may point to
the line, very shortly to be opened, which wil. con-
nect Melbourne with its harbour. We are mll by
this time familiar with the mournful history of the
vexations, the perils, the waste of money and time,
to which the voyager to the land of gold was ex-
posed in the last nine miles of his course. After
thousands of. miles of ocean travelling he found
himself stopped in sight of the spot he had come so
far to gain by the necessity of getting himself and
his goods up a miserable little stream full of sand-
bars, and :so tortuous in its course that in no wind
can sails be employed. The navigation of the
Yarra will now be in a great measure superseded
by the possibility of unloading at a sea harbour,
and then ten minutes of a railway will take the
eager traveller into the midst of, perhaps, the
ugliest, worst-built, newest, richest, and dearest
town in the globe. Another railway, again, will
soon connect Melbourne with Geelong. Victoria
has now two capitals, each possessing some Conve-
niences and advantages, and both labouring under
some counterbalancing deficiencies. But when a
railway has bound them together, each will share
the advantages of the other. And these under-
takings seem small and insignificant by the side of
the great scheme which proposes to connect Mel-
bourne with Sydney. A line is in contemplation
which will first carry the digger to the gold, rocks
of Mount Alexander, and then sweep away to the
north-east. Instead of having to waste days in
lumbering over a road intersected with gullies,
and often ending abruptly in a quagmire, the
mining adventurer may soon spend a pleasant
morning in Melbourne, looking for a wife or a bar-
gain, and still be back by the down express in
time to have a good day's work with the mattock
and cradle. When it has brought the digger to
his location, the train will hurry the traveller
bound for the capital of New South Wale's over
the rich plains lying at the base of the Austra-
lian Alps, and watered by . the numerous streams
that feed the great tributaries of the Murray.
The line will find an opening through the
great chain of mountains by means of one of the
great passes that admit the waters of the Yass, and
then, entering on the long valley which gives a
channel to the Shoalhaven and the Hawkesbury,
will terminate at the harbour of Port Jackson. It
will probably be some years before the London and
Liverpool of Australia, as they have been termed,
will be thus united ; but colonial energy will not
suffer the time to be a day longer than is abso-
lutely necessary. Of the 500 miles over which the
line is to extend, one half is on a dead flat, and the
gradients of the remaining half is by no means
great. Perhaps further investigations may show
that it is necessary to vary the details of the pro-
posed scheme ; but, in one way or another, the
colonists of this generation may expect to aye Syd-
ney and Melbourne united. We need not dwell
on the political and material advantages that would
be sure to ensue. If nothinr, more were effected
than a diminution of the jealousy and rivalry of
two provincial cities, both new, and both ellted by
rapid prosperity, enough would be done.,S make
the work a good one. .t.
.i.
MESMERISM IN. FaAr/cE.—At a time when .'
smeric
notions are turning almost every head, s more
than mesmeric agencies turn our tables, ill not
be without interest to the thinking world . hear
that the Academy of Moral and 'Political b' .`.t.. ces of
the Institute of France has at length offere, N,a prize
for the best philosophical essay on " Sleep, Dream-
ing, Natural and Artificial Somnambulism,' &c.
The essays are to be in the hands of the secretary
of the Academy by the end of this month, and4he de-
-1 cision of the academicians will come out iu Aprit 1855.
We shall wait with some anxiety for the result of the
competition, and for the expressed opinions of skika prac-
tised thinkers as are M. Victor Cousin and 0 ers of
European renown who compose the section of pli sophy
of mind in the above-mentioned academy, on is im-
portant point in the science of man, which, although so
much debated hitherto, is, after all, ad hue su4 judice.
Some authors of repute are said to have enteredghe list
with a view to gain the academical laurels. Petite:
• Aftelies de Londra. t
I