Page:Victoria, with a description of its principal cities, Melbourne and Geelong.djvu/184

 ideas of the surplus means of a people. The young Victoria, whose attractive Gold Fields have so largely monopolized her industrial population, and proportionately restricted many ordinary vocations connected with the domestic market, is somewhat amenable to this gratifying reflection, when she arrays her export tables of yesterday against the matured gradations of British commerce. But,—admitting this disadvantage to the senior in thus comparing a young prolific gold colony, which has made a sudden leap into greatness, with her old and plodding parent, whose every step to her high commercial position has been taken through protracted and laborious toil, and admitting that in general the comparison of very old with very new countries is not entirely suitable,—yet there is sufficient in common to illustrate great economic principles, and collate facts of the most important bearing. The wealth of Victoria, although acquired even with the rapid facility for which the colony gets credit, is not on this account less real or effective in the world's market. The export produce of all countries, either old or young, is a measure of social power, not only for attracting each to the other in the edifying bonds of friendly intercourse, but for the more direct advantage to each of commanding for its own use the varied productions of all the rest. To a young colony like Victoria, the large export produce is in an especial sense the great lever of progress and civilization, because it enables us for our own