were generally higher than in Sydney, as also were those of Tasmania. A schedule of the latter is given below. The fall in wages was in a measure compensated for by a lowering of the price of provisions. During this period the average price of beef in the Australian cities ranged from 21d. to 63d. per lb., and of mutton from 2d. to 3d. per lb. The price of flour ranged from 14s. to 24s. per 100 lb. These prices were very greatly below those paid prior to the crisis. Bread, for example, in 1839 sold at 11 d. the 2 lb. loaf; in 1843 the price was 3d., and thereafter it did not rise higher than 5d. until after the gold discoveries. House rents, however, continued high.

Throughout the period the demand for pastoral and agricultural labour was always fairly keen, and the stream of bounty-paid immigrants was maintained in spite of the fall in wages and the restriction in employment. The immigrants, however, were mainly of the agricultural class-shepherds, gardeners, and useful mechanics for country employment, who were readily absorbed by the community. The condition of the mechanics who clung to the towns was one of great distress. Inferior men could not earn more than 2s. 6d. per day, and at no time was the average for good men more than 5s., while even at those rates employment was at times difficult to obtain.

In Tasmania wages were maintained at a higher level than in New South Wales, and in the undermentioned trades the ruling rates per day were :

The financial crisis of 1842 did not affect Tasmania in the same degree as it did New South Wales, since in the island colony there had been less land jobbing and riotous speculation. The fall in wages in 1844 was accompanied, and, in a measure, brought about, by a fall in the cost of living. It is difficult to determine the retail prices of the various commodities in common use, and to account for the causes of the great variation apparent from year to year. The price of flour, for example, seemed to have a very ill-defined relation to the price of wheat. In 1839, wheat was sold throughout the year at 26s. per bushel, and

flour at 24s. per cwt.; in 1840 the prices were: Wheat 9s. per bushel, and flour 30s. per. cwt.; and in 1841, wheat 7s. per bushel, and flour 21s. per cwt. The price of tea was 1s. 6d. per lb. in 1839, and 2s. 6d. and 3s. 3d. in the two following years, and similarly with regard to other articles.

The following were the market prices of six of the leading commodities:

About the year 1849, the labour market in Sydney was relieved in some measure by the emigration to California which commenced immediately on the announcement of the discovery of gold in that country. But as an amount of ready cash was needed before a person could emigrate, the most distressful part of the local population was little affected by the Californian mines, and it is difficult to imagine what would have happened had not the discovery of gold, in 1851, occurred so opportunely. In an instant the face of everything was changed, as if by the wand of a magician, although the full influence of the discoveries was not felt until the following year.

During the period anterior to the gold discoveries agriculture was entirely subsidiary to sheep and cattle raising, being confined to supplying the wants of the handful of persons scattered round the coastal fringe who then comprised the population of these States. The country was, therefore, dependent upon outside sources for the supply of the greater part of the food stuffs required for ordinary consumption. Signs were not wanting, however, of an early extension of the cultivation of wheat, particularly in South Australia. The plains around Adelaide yielded magnificent crops of the cereal, and when a method of harvesting was discovered which enabled the farmers to gather the crops, in spite of the looseness of the grain in the ear and the extreme brittleness of the straw, the future of the industry at once became more hopeful.

Naturally the manufacturing industries did not make much progress. Manufacturing for export was out of the question, handicapped as the infant settlements were by distance from the centres of civilisation. What industries there were had been called into being by the isolation of the country. The largest number of establishments of any kind were flour mills, of which there were in 1848 about 223; of these 87 were worked by steam, 53 by water, 42 by wind, and 38 by horsepower. The next in importance were establishments for the treatment of leather; then came breweries and distilleries, soap and candle works, iron foundries, brick-works and potteries, and ship and boat building, in the order named. As late as 1848 the industrial establishments of Australia were as comprised in the following list, and the employment afforded did not in all probability exceed 1,800 hands :

Of the 479 establishments, 272 were in New South Wales, 41 in the Port Phillip district, 99 in Tasmania, and 67 in South Australia. There were possibly a few others in Western Australia, information in regard to which has not been recorded.

Whale-fishing, although now almost unknown in Australian waters, at one time held a very important place amongst the industries of the country. From 1791 onwards there are records of the take of vessels engaged in the industry. In the twenties there were whaling stations belonging to Sydney merchants in various parts of the southern seas, and whale fishing was afterwards carried on from a Tasmanian base at Frederick Henry Bay and from Portland Bay, Victoria. The colonists of Western Australia had also engaged in the whale fishery, which appears to have been continued by them until the whales had practically disappeared from local waters. The practice of Australian whalers of killing the calves, in order to secure the capture of the mothers, did great damage to the fishery by wastefully thinning out the product, and in 1843 the animal was remarked as becoming somewhat shy and scarce in southern seas. By the year 1847, the industry was declining in southern waters generally, and Australian shipping was engaging more exclusively in the carrying trade, and in time the whaling industry was prosecuted mainly by American vessels. The value of the total quantity of whale oil exported from New South Wales has been estimated at about £3,000,000, and from Tasmania at about £1,200,000.

The principal exports during the year preceding the gold discoveries were wool, tallow, oil, skins, bark, and salt beef. Wool has been one of the staple products of the country from the earliest days of the century, although in some years the product of the fisheries was equally important. Trade was almost wholly confined to the United Kingdom, and in ten years, 1841-50, the quantity of wool exported to that country

The value of the wool trade for the year 1850 was £1,992,369, and the shares of the present States, according to quantity and value, were:—

Sperm oil was principally exported from Sydney and Hobart, the value of the trade in 1850 being £65,499, a slightly larger quantity being despatched from Hobart than from Sydney. The value of tallow exported was £311,900, of which £167,858 was sent from Sydney, and £132,863 from Melbourne. In 1850 South Australia was already a copper producing country of some importance, and its export of metal and ore had reached £275,090. Flour was also becoming an item of export worth considering in South Australia and Tasmania, the former having exported in 1850 wheat and flour to the value of £41,491, and the latter £34,565, besides providing for the local consumption.

In 1850 the export of domestic produce, including products of fisheries, from each division of Australia was :

The attention of the people of Australia during the period extending from the year 1851 to 1858 was chiefly directed to gold-seeking. The whole period was one of rapid growth and great change. It is chiefly

interesting politically on account of the initiation of responsible government in New South Wales, Victoria, South Australia, and Tasmania, and commercially, because of the construction of the first railroads and the establishment of steam communication with Great Britain.

The discovery of gold not only put an end to the depression of the previous period, but it effected a revolution in all industrial relations. According to contemporary evidence, the supply of labour in many occupations speedily became exhausted, and there were more persons desirous of hiring labourers than there were labourers to be hired. The diggings drained not only Melbourne and Sydney, but Adelaide, Hobart, and every other Australian centre. Most branches of industry and all public works were at a standstill. In New South Wales the sheep and cattle stations were deserted by their hands very shortly after the first great discoveries were made, and for a time it was impossible, in some parts of the colony, to care for the flocks except by the employment of aborigines. In South Australia, during 1852 and 1853, the crops would have remained unharvested if it had not been for the assistance of the blacks, so great was the exodus of farming hands. In Victoria, where the greatest quantity of gold was found, for a brief period no other occupation than gold seeking was thought of, until it was discovered by the reflecting part of the population that trade offered even greater and surer prizes, and there as well as elsewhere every department of industry received a direct stimulus. In Tasmania the people became so infected with the epidemic that there was danger of the island becoming depopulated. The able-bodied men left by every boat, and Bass's Straits became in a brief period a populous waterway from the home of hardship and toil to the visionland of wealth. So great was the exodus that some of the country districts were utterly deserted by the male inhabitants.

The eight or nine years characterised by the rage of the gold fever exercised a very great economic effect on the condition of the working classes; for had there been no discovery of gold it is not improbable that, with respect to both the standard of living and the remuneration of labour, the conditions existing prior to 1850 would have long remained without any great change for the better. In those days the standard of labour in England was the practical test of the condition of the working classes in Australia, who were thought well off simply because their earnings enabled them to enjoy comforts beyond the reach of their fellows in the Old World. Since the gold era this has been changed, and the standard now made for themselves by Australian workers has no reference to that of any other country. The attractions of the goldfields had also a marked subsequent effect upon industries of an absolutely different character. Many men, of all sorts of trades and professions, who were drawn to these shores by the prospect of acquiring enough of the precious metal to ensure their independence, remained in the country, and pursued less exciting and less precarious callings, while gold-miners themselves in many cases ceased the exploitation of