THE FIRST ATTEMPT AT GOVERNMENT 171 



Van Diemen's Land for account, and under the responsibility of the 

 Derwent Bank Company at Hobart Town. Under these respect- 

 able auspices the exchange was fixed at the comparatively moderate 

 rate of 5 per cent., at which it continued for many years. 



Six months later Mr. D. C. Macarthur, who lived to realise the 

 marvellous changes that had metamorphosed the Melbourne of his 

 youth, arrived from Sydney with the necessary cash, safes and 

 appliances for the establishment of a branch of the Bank of Austral- 

 asia, which he opened on the 28th of August in a small cottage in 

 Little Collins Street, on the north side, a few doors west of Elizabeth 

 Street. 



A branch of the Union Bank of Australia was opened about the 

 same time on the north-east corner of Queen Street and Flinders 

 Lane, under the management of Mr. William Highett, who, after 

 his retirement from banking life, sat for many years in the Legis- 

 lative Council of Victoria, both as a nominee and also under the 

 new constitution. 



Considering that at this time the entire population of the settle- 

 ment was estimated by Sir George Gipps at about 3,000, it must be 

 admitted that the establishment of the three banks within the year 

 implied not only a lavish provision for the financial requirements 

 of the colonists, but an amount of faith in their future which 

 happily proved to be well founded. 



The pioneer settlers of Port Phillip had not only an unswerving 

 faith in their adopted country, but they lost no opportunity of pro- 

 claiming it to the world at large. In Arden's little book, Latest 

 Information with regard to Australia Felix, the finest Province of 

 the Great Territory of New South Wales, printed in Melbourne, in 

 1840, it is declared that "Australia Felix," from her favourable 

 position both as regards the "actions of nature and of man, has 

 acquired a foundation for future stability hitherto unparalleled in 

 the history of colonisation". Such being the universal belief, it 

 is no wonder that the development of the country was the pro- 

 minent theme of discussion whenever the commercial and pastoral 

 interests took council together. And since that development how- 

 ever powerfully assisted by the energy and industry of the popula- 

 tion must be but slow without the stimulating aid of capital, yet 



