Page:History of Adelaide and vicinity.djvu/72

 46 ADELAIDE AND VICINITY The Builders relations, rather than improving, became increasingly strained. The unanimity so dramatically to;isted by Governor Hindmarsli on Proclamation Day did not really exist, and because the highest officials quarrelled the people followed suit. Parties were formed, some upholding the cause of Governor Hindmarsh. some that of Mr. F"isher, and some, in survey matters, that of Colonel Light. Errors in the government were apparent, and in the course of months became more and more serious in their effects. Work was left undone, and necessary orders were not given. Such was the management, indeed, that there was a want of stock for transport uses, insufficient food for the survey officers, and ill-feeling concerning the rates of wages paid. A principal cause of misfortune was the slowness with which the rural surveys proceeded. Colonel Light did his utmost to complete them quickly, but he was pestered by a dissjitisfied Governor, hampered by interruptions from the people, and cramped by having under his command an inefficient and a small staff of surveyors. In coldly calculating the situation, it seems absurd that the Colonising Commissioners or the British Government did not send surveyors to the Province months before the settlers were allowed to embark, so that the city might have been laid out, and a rural area sufficient for the first demand surveyed to receive them. A similar experience in Western Australia should have convinced the authorities of the importance of this point, and the Commissioners themselves soon recognised it, as their annual reports at this time show. Even a perfect constitution was worth nothing to a new province unless proper preliminary arrangements were made for the reception of the pioneers. As it was, over 2,000 people were landed in South Australia before any but a limited number could get to work upon the soil. Some 5,000 sheep were imi)orted up to December, 1837, but their owners had to run them, by permission of the Governor, on Crown lands near Holdfast Bay. Additional immigrants were constantly arriving, and they had to waste their time and their substance in the city. They were not provided with enough ready capital for such an emergency, and hence they were com|)elIed to sell their farming implements, their dairy utensils, and other goods to obtain money to buy food. Auctioneers conducted a thriving business, and their premises were filled with a motley variety of articles that should have been utilised by the people in their several occupations. It is not surprising that drunkenness " was carried to a lamentable excess in the Province." and Mr. Gouger adds that it was "an evil of the first magnitude." The Government was without money, for the parent State would not help it; and on one occasion the Treasury had only is. 6d. in its coffers, which, once said the jKjpular Colonial Treasurer of the day (Mr. Osmond Gilles), was guarded by a drunken marine from the Buffalo. The revenue of the Government was derived mainly from the duty on spirits. The large number of arrivals in South Australia delayed Colonel Light in his .surveys. He set his men to work marking out the rural areas close to the city, but the vehicles introduced for the use of the staff were diverted to convey the luggage of new comers from the se;iboard. The supplies of food required for the men were divided