PROCEEDINGS, NOVEMBER. XXV 



The advancement all round during the time I have been here has been 

 very marked. Living near the Domain, as I do, I am struck by the 

 improvements constantly being made in it, still more beautifying that 

 beautiful park. The means of access to objects of interest in the neigh- 

 baurhood of the city have been greatly improved. Only two years ago 

 a stranger might easily have lost his way in going up Mount Welliog- 

 ton, a journey which every stranger should make. Now there is an 

 excellent track right to the summit, from which, as we all know, a 

 glorious view is to be had. When I came to Tasmania I had lo land 

 from my steamer in a tender. Now the largest steamships afloat lie 

 alongside of our wharves. A.t that time if I wanted to telegraph to 

 England I had to pay 9s. lid. a word. Now it is less than half that 

 amount. Then a letter Home cost 6d. for postage ; now the cost is 



But when I have been indulging in this vein in conversation lately, 

 I have not unfrequently been met by the rejoinder, "True, there has 

 been great advancement, but all that has come to an end, and the 

 country is in a more depressed state than it has ever been before." I 

 should be the last to make light of the present financial difficulties of 

 the country. That a small community like ours should have to pay 

 upwards of £300,000 a year, or about £2 a head for every man, 

 woman, and child in the island, outside of our borders, for interest of 

 money borrowed, at a time when our industries, out of the profits of 

 which alone this payment can be made, are in a depressed condition, is 

 a serious matter. But I see lights through the darkness. Your 

 natural resources are great, and your productions must and can be in- 

 creased. You have recently passed through a period of most unhealthy 

 speculation in mines, and are suffering trom its inevitable collapse. 

 The '"haste-to-be-rich" which such a time necessarily induces is, how- 

 ever, now being replaced by that honest industry which alone can make 

 a courtry really prosperous. In a time of speculative excitement it is 

 true that certain individuals may be enriched by the transfer of wealth 

 from other individuals, who of course are so much the poorer, but the 

 actual total production of wealth in the country is not increased by- 

 such transfer. On the contrary, there is a diminution of it, for the 

 inevitable result of gambling in stocks and shares is that the energies 

 of so many of the people are directed into nonprodu:!tive, instead of 

 into productive, channels. Industries which yield a safe and certain, 

 though a moderate, return for the labour expended upon them lan- 

 guish, or are put on one side altogether, while those who ought to be 

 steadily developing the country's resources, and in this way securing 

 their own comfort and happiness, as well as the prosperity of their country, 

 are deluding themselves by the vain hope that by means of soms lucky 

 hit or fortunate speculative adventure they may relieve themselves of 

 the necessity of honest hard work in securing a livelihood. Where 

 one succeeds in this hope hundreds fail, yet still the spirit of gambling 

 keeps the hope alive, so long as speculation is rife in a country, and 

 the loser of to-day may look forward to being a winner to-morrow. 

 All this is now happily being changed, but the change is not being 

 eff'ected without serious loss to the community, aggravated and inten- 

 sified by the disastrous failure of a trusted local bank, the Bank of Van 

 Diemen's Land, whose shameful mismanagement has caused widespread 

 suffering ruin to many in our midst ; a suffering and a ruin of which 

 the end has by no means yet been reached. Still there are prospscts of 

 better times before us. It is true that the wealth of the country, judged 

 by the present selling prices of the land and by the market quotations 

 of various securities and undertakings, has fallen enormously, but our 

 resources are just what they were. The real wealth is with us all the 

 eame, and the bone and sinew to make it available and to put it into 

 «, marketable shape. I have already referred to the possibilities of expan- 



