The
Luxuries Of Life Are In Abundance, And Very Little Dearer Than
In England, And Most Articles Of Food Are Cheaper.
The
climate is splendid, and perfectly healthy; but to my mind
its charms are lost by the uninviting aspect of the country.
Settlers possess a great advantage in finding their sons of
service when very young.
At the age of from sixteen to
twenty, they frequently take charge of distant farming stations.
This, however, must happen at the expense of their
boys associating entirely with convict servants. I am not
aware that the tone of society has assumed any peculiar
character; but with such habits, and without intellectual
pursuits, it can hardly fail to deteriorate. My opinion is
such, that nothing but rather sharp necessity should compel
me to emigrate.
The rapid prosperity and future prospects of this colony
are to me, not understanding these subjects, very puzzling.
The two main exports are wool and whale-oil, and to both
of these productions there is a limit. The country is totally
unfit for canals, therefore there is a not very distant point,
beyond which the land-carriage of wool will not repay the
expense of shearing and tending sheep. Pasture everywhere
is so thin that settlers have already pushed far into the
interior: moreover, the country further inland becomes extremely
poor. Agriculture, on account of the droughts, can
never succeed on an extended scale: therefore, so far as I
can see, Australia must ultimately depend upon being the
centre of commerce for the southern hemisphere, and perhaps
on her future manufactories. Possessing coal, she
always has the moving power at hand. From the habitable
country extending along the coast, and from her English
extraction, she is sure to be a maritime nation. I formerly
imagined that Australia would rise to be as grand and powerful
a country as North America, but now it appears to me
that such future grandeur is rather problematical.
With respect to the state of the convicts, I had still fewer
opportunities of judging than on other points. The first
question is, whether their condition is at all one of
punishment: no one will maintain that it is a very severe one.
This, however, I suppose, is of little consequence as long as
it continues to be an object of dread to criminals at home.
The corporeal wants of the convicts are tolerably well supplied:
their prospect of future liberty and comfort is not
distant, and, after good conduct, certain. A "ticket of
leave," which, as long as a man keeps clear of suspicion as
well as of crime, makes him free within a certain district, is
given upon good conduct, after years proportional to the
length of the sentence; yet with all this, and overlooking
the previous imprisonment and wretched passage out, I
believe the years of assignment are passed away with discontent
and unhappiness. As an intelligent man remarked to
me, the convicts know no pleasure beyond sensuality, and in
this they are not gratified.
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