" During the five months which followed
the writing of this letter, four thousand persons (most of them
wage-earners in the prime of life) left Tasmania for Victoria. As the
whole population of Tasmania was at this time only about fifty thousand,
the matter was serious. Nevertheless, Tasmania tided safely over the
difficulties of the gold period, and even was able to help her sorely
tried sister.
For it was upon the newly established Government at Melbourne that the
strain of the new era most severely fell. The Government at Sydney was
an old and tried institution, with traditions of more than half a
century, and a staff of experienced officials under an exceptionally
able chief. When Hargraves made his discoveries in 1851, the population
of the mother-colony was nearly a quarter of a million, exclusive of the
Port Phillip district, and such a population meant a government
organization of corresponding magnitude. Moreover, the people of New
South Wales had always, from circumstances, been accustomed to much
governmental control, and did not resent it; while Victoria had been
started as a colony whose people were too prosperous and contented to
require more than a minimum of guidance.
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