88 AUSTRALASIA ILLUSTRATED. 



who took his seat in November of the same year. It is a very singular fact that a 

 legislative body composed of so many able men should have been called into existence 

 in a colony where, but a few years before, public questions were almost wholly confined 

 to matters in dispute between the free settlers and the Emancipists. 



Among the first questions with which the new Council was called upon to deal, the 

 most important related to the extreme distress which existed more or less among all 

 classes. From 1840 to 1846, the colony was plunged in a state of depression which 

 brought the shadow of ruin to every man's door. This was to some extent the result 

 of a re-action from the inflated state of prosperity which had existed a few years before, 

 when prices of land and stock rose to a fictitious value, and speculation in land 

 absorbed all the floating capital in the country. Among the immediate causes of depres- 

 sion were the cessation of Imperial expenditure on transportation, and the withdrawal of 

 Government deposits from the banks ; the consequent pressure brought to bear by those 

 institutions on their customers ; the substitution of free labour for that of the assigned 

 servants, necessitating cash payment of wages ; the locking up of capital in large 

 purchases of land, which up to that time had been sold at five and subsequently twelve 

 shillings an acre ; and indulgence in excessive speculation, by which the ordinary indus- 

 tries of the country were deprived of capital. The result was that every branch of trade 

 and industry fell into a state of utter collapse ; property became unsaleable ; sheep 

 (ordinary ewes) that had been purchased shortly before at two guineas each, were 

 hardly disposable at five or six shillings ; money had almost disappeared from circulation ; 

 and finally, as if to intensify the crisis, the Bank of Australia closed its doors with 

 liabilities amounting to a quarter of a million. 



One of the first remedies for this state of things proposed in the Council was a 

 "Monetary Confidence" Bill, passed in the session of 1844 on the motion of Mr. 

 Richard Windeyer. The Bill proposed to " avert ruin " by pledging the public credit, 

 but Gipps withheld the Royal Assent, and the project was therefore never carried out. 

 During the debate an amendment was moved by Mr. Charles Cowper, in which, after 

 declaring that " the miseries of the time were increasing with frightful rapidity, and 

 were likely to involve in ruin the whole community," it was suggested that the Govern- 

 ment should relieve the strain by issuing exchequer bills. That proposal, however, was 

 rejected. Another desperate remedy, in the shape of a Lottery Bill, was submitted with 

 more success by Mr. Wentworth, who had now become the most conspicuous figure in 

 the country. The failure of the Bank of Australia, established on the principle of 

 unlimited liability, had not only rendered it necessary for the bank to realise its assets 

 comprising a great deal of landed property but the share-holders had become involved 

 in its fall. It was contended that if they were subjected to levy and distress, the 

 immediate result would be "a panic which would annihilate the value of property." The 

 Bill empowered the proprietors of the bank to dispose of its assets by lottery ; its 

 author justifying the scheme on the ground that a lottery was " the only adequate 

 remedy for a great public danger, which threatens nothing less than the disorganization 

 of society by the confiscation of that property for whose protection it mainly exists." 

 The Bill passed, three members only opposing it ; but it was disallowed by the Home 

 Government. However, the pressure was so intense that the terrors of the law were 



