100 A HISTORY OF THE COLONY OF VICTORIA 



alluvial field appeared to be worked out the population fell from 

 thousands to hundreds, it generally remained as a rallying-point, 

 and if the surroundings were at all favourable, grew into importance 

 upon a more favourable basis. With the beginnings of agriculture 

 in earnest a decade later, the most favoured spots for selection were 

 adjacent to some township, where the facilities for supplies had been 

 already established for a largely vanished population. 



In comparison with the exceptional growth of preceding years, 

 the period now dealt with was somewhat stagnant in the matter of 

 population. On the 1st of January, 1857, it was roundly 400,000. 

 By the end of 1863 it had risen to 571,000 fully one-half of the 

 increase being due to excess of births over deaths. Immigration 

 had received a considerable check by the dissemination of press 

 reports in England of the want of employment by the labouring 

 classes, and the highly coloured speeches of the men who in public 

 meetings voiced their complaints. Prior to the commencement of 

 railway construction there were many such demonstrations, and in 

 1857 they made out such a pitiful story that Parliament voted 

 25,000 to be expended by the Public Works Department in pro- 

 viding them with remunerative occupation. The demagogues who 

 took these men in hand, acting as their spokesmen at deputations 

 and mass meetings, took their cue from the Convention, and invari- 

 ably denounced the squatter as the source of all the evils of the 

 day, declaring that their monopoly prevented the industrious 

 labourer from getting his rightful share of that land which was 

 assumed to be the sure passport to fortune. As a matter of fact, 

 the Government sold half a million acres of land during this year, 

 1857, at an absurdly low price a quantity enormously in excess of 

 the available people capable of bringing it into profitable use. To 

 talk of putting the shiftless, penniless crowd of workless men upon 

 the land was merely to suggest relegating them to starve out of 

 sight instead of parading their woes in the city. The Government 

 invented work for them at 5s. per day some of it, though not pre- 

 sently necessary, was prospectively useful ; much of it was abso- 

 lutely wasteful. One contingent was employed for several months 

 in levelling the sand dunes on the beach between Sandridge and St. 

 Kilda with a vague intention of some day selling them for residence 



