Page:The Condition and Resources of New South Wales.djvu/13

11 out his conclusion, that wages and immigration have declined pretty much in the same ratio. Wages have never been so high in either colony as in those years when the tide of immigration set in most strongly. But this is a question upon which I am not here going to enter, as it would lead me very wide of the object of this paper.

Although our progress in population has not kept pace with that of our enterprising young offshoot in the north, nor yet with our older offshoot in the south, we should not forget that we occupy a country, much of it of the richest quality, which embraces over five hundred acres of land for every man, woman, and child in it, and which, without exceeding the density of the population as it now exists in the county of Cumberland, exclusive of Sydney, will admit of a population exceeding fifteen millions of souls, or nearly forty times the number of its present inhabitants. When we reflect on this fact, and consider the enormous field which is thus offered for the extension of the industry and enterprise of the colonists, we cannot but regard our present difficulties as the result of a plethora of credit rather than of a diminution of wealth, as having little or no serious effect upon the general prosperity, and as being of a very evanescent character. I will now pass on to a review of our resources under the next head of inquiry, namely,