Page:Physical Description of New South Wales and Van Diemen's Land.djvu/33

 into our constitution, and I heartily welcome to this chamber the first representatives of the people. “ The period, gentlemen, at which you enter on your functions, is one of acknowledged difficulty, and it is therefore more grateful to me to have my own labours and responsibilities lightened by your co-operation and assistance. “ I shall most readily concur with you in any measures which may be calculated to develope the resources of the colony, by calling into action the energies of the people, taking care, however, that we proceed on sure principles, and not overlooking the great truths, that the enterprise of individuals is ever most active, when left as far as possible unshackled by legislative enactment, and that industry and economy are the only sure foundations of wealth. Great as undoubtedly are the embarrassments under which numbers, even of the most respectable, of our fellow-subjects in the colony are now labouring, it is consolatory to me to think, that grievous though they be to individuals, they are not of a nature permanently to injure us as a community; that, on the contrary, they may be looked on as forming one of those alterations in the progress of human events, which occur in all countries, and perhaps most frequently in those whose general prosperity is the greatest. “ Nor should we, gentlemen, enter upon the labours of this session, without making our grateful acknowledgments to Almighty God, for the many blessings he has showered down upon us. Our embarrassments may be the effect of our own errors — but it is to His bounty and goodness we are indebted, that the fruits of the earth, as well as the productions of industry, abound throughout the land. If, in addition to the monetary confusion which has 3