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.
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