The position is certainly critical; with any other people than those of Anglo-Saxon race, it might be desperate: a few months more delay, and the wool shearing will be lost; for the flocks, no longer watched, will have strayed away, and possibly will have perished. It was the work of a quarter of a century to have accumulated the capital employed in Agriculture in Australia; without an immense immigration, not of gold seekers, but of shepherds, and persons accustomed to a pastoral life, before the end of 1852 all this capital will be inevitably destroyed. England has awakened rather late to the danger, but she has now to work in good earnest to apply the remedy. The Governor of Australia witnessed the daily arrivals of emigrants with alarm, so long as they added only to the crowds of miners, and who by their competition still further increased the price of provisions; he even pressed the Colonial Secretary to try and turn the stream of emigration to other colonies. But independent of Government emigration, voluntary associations for the same object have not been inactive. Liverpool alone has been shipping at the rate of 2,000 a month for Sydney or Melbourne. Ships are wanting in all the ports of Great Britain and Ireland, for the transport of emigrants. Shipbuilding yards are all in the greatest state of active employment. Nor has this want of an agricultural population in Australia been overlooked. The islands to the north and west and the Highlands of Scotland, contain a population far too numerous for their means of adequate support, so that in spite of hard and constant work, there is frequent mortality from famine in this poor and barren country. Twenty or thirty thousand of these labourers, engaged for agricultural occupations in Van Dieman’s Land, and for sheep tending in New South Wales, would cease to be a burthen on English charity, and would avert the ruin of Australia. Subscription lists are opened in England for this object, and the colony itself is in a position to lend its aid, as Sir John Packington informed Sir G. Fitzroy that the government would place at the disposal of the local legislature the revenues which might accrue from the workings of these gold regions. At this time the port of London contains a fleet of vessels ready to sail for Australia, capable of conveying 23,000 persons and 30,000 tons of merchandize. It is clear, that by abandoning all the rights of the Crown to the treasures of the “placers,” the British Government has saved Australia. By this arrangement, the Colonial revenues have been almost doubled; 30s. a month levied on 60,000 miners, working eight months in the year, would produce [120]18,000,000 francs. A tax of 60s. which was attempted to be established, but which the miners resisted, might have produced [121]36,000,000 francs. In default of English labourers, the expenses of whose voyage must necessarily be great, and whose willingness to