The Sun.
London, England, 1851-09-02 00:00:00

TUESDAY EVENING,

SPIRIT of the PUBLIC JOURNALS.
7.1031 THE MORNING PAPERS GF TIIIS DAY.
TIMES.—GoId is likely to prove a drug in the
market. There has been a fresh discovery of this pre-
cious metal in New South Wales. Advices recently
received from Sydney inform us that gold has been
discovered in I,rge quantities at Bathurst, about 150
miles from that place. It does not appear that the
report has been set afloat in any loose and unsatisfac-
tory manner. The news came with all the confirma-
tion it can receive from the fiat of Government in-
spectors, and the co-operation of magistrates and leading
personages in the colony. We are told that such was
the credit attached to the rumour upon the spot that
people of all callings and denominations had abandoned
their usual business, and hurried cif to the gold dis-
tricts of Bathurst. Both sexes, all ages, and all pro-
fessions, had become confounded: in the universal
appetite for gold. The blacksmiths could not furnish
picks fast enough to supply the cupidity or esgerness
of the adventurers. The gravest personages were to
be seen trotting to the scene of action, their saddle-
bows laden with domestic implements which might,
upon an emergency, be made to serve as mining in-
struments ; washhand basins, cullenders, tin pots, gar-
den tools—whatever, in short, cerise first to band, was
converted into a rough machine for turning up the
soil, or sifting the sand which might be supposed
to contain the precious dust. Whatever of exag-
geration there may be in the thousand rumours
that were flying about, there can be no doubt as to
the impression and feeling in the colony itself. A
blanket, a "damper," and a pickaxe were reckoned an
ample outfit for the future millionaire. All the usual
avocations of the colonists had been entirely deserted
in consequence of the universal and all-absorbing
thirst for gold. The question naturally arises—what
degree of credit can we, living in England, attach to
a report which is likely to exercise so important an
influence upon the destinies of mankind ? We knew
even before that the soil of Australia was teeming
with mineral treasures of every kind. There is no a
priori improbability in such a discovery. On the
contrary, we should be led to expect, where ether
metals were found in so great abundance, that gold
and silver formed no exception to the general rule.
When we come to look for positive evidence, we find
it stated that the son of Mr. Neal, a brewer, had
picked up in the Bathurst district a piece of gold
weighing eleven ounces, which be had disposed of
for 30/. An old man bad found several pieces
in masses, the united weight of which amounted
to two or three pounds. The manager of
the Union Bank of Australia—no mean
thority, one should suppose—had met with a
success similar in kind, although less in degree.
He too had picked up some fragments of the precious
metal, and the few handfuls of loose earth he brought
back with him from the scene of action had been pro-
perly manipulated, and from them a piece of gold had
been extracted about the size of a pea. The strongest
testimony remains behind. In a case of such import-
ance we need offer no apology for copying here the
exact words of our intelligence :—" On Wednesday
morning last Mr. Hargraves, accompanied by Mr.
Stutchbury, the Government geologist, went to the
diggings, and with his own hands washed a pan of
earth in his presence, from which 21 grains of fine
gold were produced. He afterwards washed several
baskets of earth, and produced gold therefrom. Mr.
Stutchbury hereupon expressed his satisfaction, and
immediately furnished him with credentials, which
have since been forwarded to Government." However
small the credit we might be disposed to attach to any
mere popular impulse, it is undeniable that in the
present instance the frenzy of .the colonists has not
been without some foundation in sober reason. It is
all very well for us, sitting here in judgment upon
the impulses of our antipodes, to treat such a report
as this with suspicion. Let us ask what our own
behaviour would have been had the leading geologists
in the mother country certified that scarcely below
the surface of the Welch mountains lumps of fine gold
were to be had at no greater cost of labour than is in-
volved in scratching the soil, and sifting the surface
earth in our cullenders and washhand-basins ? Ere
a week had elapsed, what would have become of a
large percentage from the two and a half million in-
habitants of London ? The wisest and most cautious
among us would suddenly have discovered that the
mountain air of Wales was peculiarly grateful to the
human constitution. Some of us in first-class car-
riages, some in second—some in no carriages at all—
we should all have made our way to the scene of ac-
tion, and endeavoured to make our fortunes at one
bold stroke. There is no inherent improbability in the
report. It comes is us confirmed by the strongest po-
sitive testimony. Australia may yet put California
to shame. It is said that from the mountain ranges
to an indefinite extent in the interior the region
named is one vast gold field. If the expectations
of the discoverers should prove true, and the tract
of country in the neighbourhood of Bathurst pro-
duce the expected crop of bullion, the exchanges
will ere long be seriously affected, and all the com-
mercial transactions of mankind respond to the de-
preciation in the price of gold. We know but of one
consideration which might to a certain degree affect
the credibility of the report. For the last sixty years
—if we are not mistaken—the tract in question has
been wandered over by the colonists and their convict
servants ; but until the present moment not a syllable
has ever been breathed of the neighbourhood of
Bathurst as a gold producing region. The ignorance
of the settlers and their domestics may, however, be
accepted as a sufficient counterpoise against this draw-
back; and, in the face of positive testimony, we do
not know that it should be permitted to turn the
balance. Everything must have a beginning; and it
would be hard to say that the value of the Mexican
or Californian mines has been ushered into notoriety
under fairer auspices. There is, however, one
thing to be guarded against. The discovery of
this Australian gold fielet is the commencement of
a popular delusion. It must be remembered that
under the most favourable circumstances a very
small portion of the adventurers will reap fame
or fortune as the result of their enterprise. Almost
certain disappointment—if not misery and death—
awaits the great bulk of the actual adventurers. As
far as mere speculators are concerned, before this re-
port shall have assumed a definite commercial shape,
we solemnly bid them to remember the experience of
their predecessors in the South American mines about
a quarter of a century ago. Some few men will make
large fortunes—the great bulk of the adventurers will
lose their time, and probably their lives, in the pur-
suit of a sudden transition of fortune. Mining ope-
rations pre. eminently require skill and experience.
Without these indispensable qualifications, for one
prize there are ninety-nine blanks. These warnings
apart, it is impossible to regard the discovery of so
vast an amount of gold in Australia otherwise than
as one of the most important events of our time. It
would seem to be established as a law of modern de-
velopment, that when it becomes necessary that a race
or people must spread, the soil to which they should
be tempted is baited with gold. The impulses that
knit men to their native country are powerful, but
they cannot resist the glitter of actual gold thrown
broadcast upon the surface of the earth.
ADVERTISER.—Our readers, we doubt not,
have their eyes and their thoughts just now stead-
fastly fixed on the state of matters in Germany and
Italy. They will, before long, be repaid for their
trouble. They may be so any day, or any hour.
Everything is ripe fur a great explosion. The ma-
terials are ready in both countries for a tremendous
outbreak of the pent-up feelings, and suppressed pur-
poses, of the people. The Germans and Italians re-
sident in this and other foreign lands do not regard
another insurrection as a contingency. It is as much
believed in as if it had already taken place. The ques-
tion is no longer put to themselves, or to others, " Will
another revolution come ?" The sole question is—
" What ought the people to do when it has occurred ?"
Tbis last is a grave question. It is one which ought
to be well considered now. It is infinitely more im-
portant than the question—How shall we most effec-
tually and moat expeditiously overthrow the existing
despotism ? The latter work will be done for them.
Their aid is not needed. The Pope in Italy, and Austria
and Prussia in Germany, are doing the work in excellent
style. It could not be in better bands. Mazzini and
Ronge, and their fellow-labourers in the cause of popu-
lar progress, are poor revolutionists compared with the
Governments of the Pope, of Austria, and of Prus-
sia. The latter will do snore to accelerate the doom
of all existing continental tyrannies, in one short
hour, than the exiled friends of liberty in Italy and
Germany could do in a year. But though matters
are so near their consummation in Germany and
Italy, that no one need ask himself or his neighbour
what they ought to do to hasten the great revolution-
ary advent, the other question, as to what ought to be
done when the coming change has occurred, is one of
the most momentous kind, and ought to receive the
immediate and best attention of the friends of civil and
religious liberty in these unfortunate countries. The
character and the worth of the impending revolutions
will be entirely dependent on the purposes to which
they are turned, after they have taken place. Last
time Vienna and Rome lost the benefits of their
revolutions eolely because the people of these places
bad so entirely fixed their thoughts and aspirations on
the way in which the desired changes in the
governments of their country could be best achieved,
that it never occurred to them what they were to do
with the revolution when they had obtained it. When
the people of Vienna found that Metternich had
vanished, and the Romans learnt that the Pope had
escaped from the Vatican in the habiliments of one
of his own lacqueys, they fancied, in the simplicity
of their souls, that the work had all been done—that
the revolution had been consummated—and that it
now only remained for them to reap the fruits of
their patriotic efforts and sacrifices. Sad experience
soon told them a different tale. Many months had
not elapsed before they found how much they had
deceived themselves. What occurred in Vienna and
Rome, soon after the successful revolutions in those
cities, we need not now describe, it its known to