se of
the word, and one in which those profitable interests will rapidly
increase.

We have hitherto been speaking of the mines of South Australia as the
sources of wealth, and as the sudden, if not the remote cause of the
prosperity of that province. It now becomes our duty to consider how far
the discovery of the mines has benefited or interfered with the other
branches of industry and sources of wealth; and as regards both these, it
must be admitted that their discovery has had an injurious effect. The
high rate of wages given by the proprietors of mines, not only to the
miners, but to all whom they employ, draws the labourers from every other
occupation to engage with them. The consequence has been a general want
of labourers throughout the whole colony, still more severely felt by
reason of the previous want of labour in the labour market. Every man who
could obtain sufficient money to purchase a dray and team of bullocks,
hurried to the mines for a load of ore to take to the port, and disdained
any ordinary employment when by carting ore he could earn 6 or 7 pounds in
a fortnight. The labourer was quite right in going where he received the
best remuneration for his services; but the consequences were in many
instances fatal to their former employers. Many farmers were unable to
put in seed or to cultivate their land; many, after having done so, were
unable to gather it, and had it not been for the use of Mr. Ridley's
machine, the loss in the crops would have been severely felt. Not only
did the farmers suffer, but the stock-holders, and the colonists
generally. The want of hands, indeed, was felt by all classes of the
community, since the natural consequence of the high wages given by the
mining proprietors to the men they employed, tended still more to depress
the labour market, and to increase the demand upon it by leading many of
the more frugal labourers to purchase land with the money they were
enabled to save. As landed proprietors they not only withdrew their
labour from the market, but in their turn became employers; but I feel
called upon to say at the same time, that equal distress was felt in the
neighbouring colonies for working hands, where no mines had been
discovered, and where they could not therefore possibly have interfered.

From what has been said of the province of South Australia, and setting
its mines entirely out of the question, the description that has been
given of its pastoral and agri