Observations on Tasmanian Statistics. 17 



actually realized at the gold-fields, and become available 

 in Melbourne for investment, — and when population was 

 pouring into that city from all parts of the world, and the 

 necessity for accommodation, and even shelter from the 

 inclemency of the weather, had become urgent, — then the 

 demand for timber grew from day to day, and prices rose 

 out of all proportion. Hence the value of the export 

 of timber from Tasmania in 1852 became triple that of 

 1851, and in 1853 more than five-fold what it had been in 

 1852; luring back to our Tasmanian forests many of the 

 adventurers, who found that the gold-fields, after all, were 

 less profitable, and much more precarious, than the rewards 

 offered to the steady application of labour in this department 

 of industry. 



The imports of timber also, consisting ' of cedar from 

 New South Wales, pine from New Zealand, but chiefly of 

 deals from America and the north of Europe, take a sudden 

 spring from 501341 in 1852 to £24,057 in 1853; an in- 

 crease sufficiently explained by the high prices which, as 

 has been already stated, stimulated our own timber trade to 

 such excessive production. 



Tables 11 and 12 are returns of the quantity and value 

 of grain and flour imported and exported during the same 

 period of ten years. The steadiness of the imports of these 

 prime necessaries of life was at once affected by the general 

 rush to the gold-fields, and the consequent check to the cul- 

 tivation of the land. In 1850 the total value of these imports 

 was £1860; in 1851 it had increased to £4402, or 136 

 per cent. ; in 1852 to £14,294, or 224 per cent. ; and in 

 1853 to £75,627, or 429 per cent. The timely supply 

 of American flour balanced, in some measure, our own 

 additional exports of breadstuff's, and helped to feed our own 

 population. The exact quantity of each description of 



c 



