The Liverpool Standard and General Commercial Advertiser.
Liverpool, Merseyside, England, 1852-09-21 00:00:00

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AUSTRALIA AND ITS PRODUCTS, BY
EYE-WITNESS.

To the P.DITOR of the LIVERPOOL STANDARD

3.,—Having recently returned from Australia

had ample opportunities of contrasting the present state
of society in that colony with that which existed before
its stores of gold were discovered, it has occurred to me
that it might be interesting to your readers to be furnished
with a brief description. I am the more readily induced

to attempt this office, because no description has as yet
appeared that conveys anything like an idea of the reality.

The first thing which strikes a person arriving at Mel-
bourne or Adelaide, is the mass of deserted shipping at
present lying in their harbours. At least there are 150
ships in the two places, the bulk of them large British
ships, whose officers and crews have lett them, and pro-
ceeded to the diggings, with very little probability of ever

returning ; and the chance of getting other crews, at any-
thing like reasonable wages, seems a very distant one.
Your readers may conceive how distant is that chance,
when I state to you that the lightermen who discharged
the vessel under my own command, the Albatross, were
regularly receiving £lO a month for their services; and
very independent fellows they were even at that price.
In fact, society is almost inverted in the colony. The
able-bodied labourer is the master, and employers of la-
bour are regarded as the obliged parties, if they get men
at all.

The same cause—the attraction offered by the mines—

which has led to the desertion of the shipping in the
harbours, has contributed to draw away from the towns
nearly all the really useful portion of the population.
Nearly every man capable of procuring and wielding
mining tools has been, or is having a spell at the dig-
gings ; and many are gone who are very little fitted for
the work. Yet there is plenty of money to be picked up
in the towns themselves. Every day parties are return-
ing from the mines, either to recruit their health or to
purchase their necessaries ; and the manner in which the
bulk of them squander their hardly-earned wealth—for
the digger's is a hard life—would astonish a British
community. They seem perfectly reckless as to how they
get rid of it, satisfied that they have only to go back and
get more ; and although there are no doubt many steady
striving men who will accumulate fortunes, there are

others of whom it may be predicted that, after a
few years of alternate excess and hard toil, they will die
as poor as they set out in life. At the time I visited Mel-
bourne and Adelaide labour was greatly wanted, especially
in mechanical trades; and even in the stores of mer-
chants there was a great deficiency of eligible clerks, &c.
many of that class having given up situations worth as
much as £250 a-year, to embark in the all-absorbing
pursuit of gold. The wages of a carpenter were 10s.
a-day, and those of a common labourer from Bs. to 10s.,
with keep. No country in the world affords such an op-
portunity of making money to all classes of tradesmen
and labourers, and men possessing capital may invest it
here to very great advantage. Owing to the bulk of the
population having gone off, and the anxiety of others to
go, valuable property could be bought at Adelaide for a
mere trifle, with a certainty of a profitable result at no
very distant periud. During my stay here a splendid
house, which cost from £6OO to £BOO, was sold for only
£BO. Money could be invested on mortgage, with good
landed security, at 20 ler cent. Sheep farming is an ex-
cellent business. A sheep station worth about £4,000,
would yield £BOO a-year; and I am acquainted with one
gentleman in the colony, who has cleared upwards of
£4,000 by sheep farming in five years.
In the agricultural parts of the country, the effect of
the drain of the population was very severely felt. The
last harvest had principally to be cut and got in by wo-
men ; and much of the crop perished. The stock of the
sheep farmers are many of them straying into the bush
for want of shepherds ; and shearing has been found in
many districts almost impossible of accomplishment. An
instance came to my knowledge, where one large flock
master visited the diggings in the hope of inducing some
of the miners to give him their services. He offered a
party at one spot £3 per week and rations, if they would
help him to shear; and he was told by a labourer that he
himself would give £4 a week, if the farmer would engage
to cook for him. The proposal was finally made that the
farmer should give them £5 each per week, and ha?! the
crop of wool to divide amongst them !; I may add that
the men were getting, according to their own account,
three or four ounces of gold per day, and considered that
they were only doing " middling."
Many descriptions have been given of the diggings them-
selves; but they really beggar description. Imagine a
wild mountainous scene, serried by gullies and creeks,
every one of which is occupied by some party of uncouth-
looking beings, unshaven, and attired in all sorts of odd-
lingmdi
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every form. The tents in which they live are equally
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various in style and size ; and are scattered up and down
wsssitfthouhefi
character of the equipments, and the furnishing of
these
temporary abodes, and also from the appearance
of the
and which have not. Few go altogether unrewarded :
and
whom I was conversing, directed my attention to a work-
ing man who had been his porter at 255. a week. He
left to go to the mines, and returned in a short time with
£5OO. £250 of this consisted of a cheque upon the bank,

and the remainder the man had in notes
his pocket like a bundle of old paper.
It will readily be gathered from the above facts who a _
the sort of people most fitted for such a country, N 3
class, however, unless it be idle merchants' clerks and
people of no trade, not ablebodied, need fear to starve
am, Sir,
there.

rolled up in

Your very obedient servJ
M.(

3EVES

Master of Ship Albatros

THE REV. JOHN GROOM, M.A., incunlbent 'of Rain_
ford, and formerly curate of St. John's Church, in this
town, has been appointed to the incumbency of St. -Alar-
garet's, Whalley Range, near Manchester, a cburch re-
cently built on the beautiful estate of Samuel Brooks,
Esq., backer, of that place.