And then, in another way, the gold-diggings of the eastern colonies have been detrimental not only to the reputation, but to the very existence of Western Australia. Men have constantly gone after the gold. It became almost useless to land emigrants on the western shore. Tidings came of this rush and of that rush, and the new-comers disappeared, soon turning up, as new chums again, in the golden land. I have expressed my opinion more than once that the majority of those who have rushed after gold have done themselves but little good;--but they enriched the colony to which their labour was given, and from which they drew their supplies. Gradually this evil of “rushing” is dying out. The amount of Australian gold produced may go on increasing year by year for many years. They who profess to understand the matter think that it will do so. But the gold will come from quartz-crushing,--from that eating up and digesting of the very bowels of the mountains by heavy machinery, which I have endeavoured to describe elsewhere,--and not by the washing of alluvial soil. It is the latter pursuit which has produced the rushes, whereas the former produces steady industry with a fixed rate of wages. The shifting of labour from colony to colony will, I think, from this cause, become less common than it has been, and agricultural work will hold its own against mining work,--in Australia as in other countries. It is a mining country, and there will be many miners;--but it will not occur to every man that he should be a miner. In speaking of the future of Western Australia I shall not receive the thanks or sympathies of many of its inhabitants, if I express an opinion that that future is to be independent of gold. The idea is deep-rooted that there should be gold and must be gold,--that Providence cannot have been so unjust as not to have put gold there. Why not in the west as well as in the east? And then the stranger is told of mica, and slate, and quartz, and boulders,--and of the very confident opinion which Mr. Hargreaves expressed. I know nothing of mica, and slate, and quartz, and boulders,--and very little of Mr. Hargreaves. But I know that no gold worthy of the name has been found yet; and that the finding of gold in infinitesimal quantities has been common in many countries. Doubtless gold may turn up in Western Australia, but I trust that the colony will be too wise to wait for it. Should it come, let the favour be accepted from the gods;--but I do not think that men should live expecting it.