296 A HISTORY OF THE COLONY OF VICTORIA 



could not but be productive of wide disorganisation in a community 

 where the male population between the ages of fifteen and sixty- 

 five numbered only 350,000. This handful of people, presumably 

 including nearly all the bread-winners, were faced with an added re- 

 sponsibility in the shape of providing annually upwards of 1,500,000 

 sterling as interest on their increased indebtedness. Had it been 

 possible to use the capital profitably this would have been a small 

 matter, but the manner in which it was used pauperised and de- 

 moralised the community, and left scarcely any permanent addition 

 to its productive or manufacturing power. 



The Government share of the borrowings was scrambled for in 

 Parliament, where every member pleaded for more expenditure in 

 his own electorate. With the exception of a few public buildings 

 for the dignity of office, a score or so of State schools, a new bridge 

 over the Yarra at Melbourne, and about 3,000,000 in extension of 

 water supply, the balance, some 14,000,000, went into the bottom- 

 less pit of haphazard railway construction to keep company with 

 other millions of non-interest-earning bonds. The proceeds of the 

 debentures and other obligations issued by the pastoral companies 

 were swallowed up in "improvements " which a remorseless drought 

 rendered valueless in a few years. It is true that the expenditure 

 of most of these loans was largely outside the colony, but the issues 

 were chiefly negotiated from Melbourne, and the proceeds came 

 mainly through the Victorian Custom House. The bonds of the 

 various property investment companies were melted to purchase 

 properties at inflated prices, most of which refused to yield a profit 

 even remotely approximate to the interest with which they were 

 burdened. The Municipal loans were largely applied to street im- 

 provements, desirable in themselves, but more legitimately charge- 

 able to current revenue. In many cases, however, the money was 

 wasted by a silly competition in the erection of costly and unneces- 

 sary suburban town halls and municipal offices. To some extent 

 the city fathers may be excused on the ground that the rateable 

 valuation of property in Melbourne and the other cities and towns 

 under the Local Government Act increased from 41,000,000 in 

 1885 to 91,000,000 in 1891. It was an emphatic endorsement of 

 the general acceptance of inflated values that the owners were 



