Page:The Present State and Prospects of the Port Phillip District of New South Wales.djvu/84

 to the emigrant. No doubt as the colony advances new modes of industry will arise, and new sources of wealth be discovered. Amongst those may be ranked the growing of wine, about which many people are very sanguine. At Sydney it succeeds very well; and the Tine thrives very much at Port Phillip; still it is too soon to pronounce an opinion, but raisins could, I should think, be made with profit.

Although, in speaking on this subject, I have endeavoured to do so with caution upon whatever seems problematical—and, where this is the case, rather to show the grounds for forming an opinion, than to announce one as already formed—yet I have no hesitation in stating what lines of life appear to me to afford but little prospect of success. Shop-keeping is one. Shop-keeping in general is overdone. There are far too many shops in Melbourne for the population of the district. Grocers and slopsellers seem to do the most business: the latter branch, as in many other places, being nearly altogether in the hands of the Jews. Ironmongery is an extensive business, but much overstocked—there are, I think, no less than six large shops of this kind in one street alone. The auctioneers, of whom there is ft great number, take a great deal of custom out of the hands of the regular trader, and I wonder how so many manage to live. Artisans and artificers, particularly those whose trades minister to luxury, obtain but little employment; and many of them find it more to their advantage to seek it in the bush, as farm-servants, if they are not encumbered with a wife and family. Coopers seem to get a good deal of business; and pro-