There are seven or eight merchants in Geelong who import goods of all kinds, twenty-two drapery establishments in a respectable way, besides numbers of small ones on the outskirts; other trades are proportionately overdone. Melbourne is, I am credibly informed, equally crowded. These facts shew that there is no opening for people in business. A great imposition is practised by stating the increase of a town at so much per cent., or having doubled or trebled itself in so short a time, the fact being that even its present condition may be that only of a village. Interested parties too often talk their places into notice; and if people do not deal in 'notions,' they all have some allotment that will just suit you, which they don't care to keep any longer.
An argument from the amount of imports is made use of unfairly. The United States are set down at 30s. per head, Australia about L.7 per head. This latter, they say, is the country to encourage, to emigrate to--see how prosperous it is! being blind, apparently, to the fact, that Australia, having nothing as yet but the raw material, tallow and wool, it must barter all it has for what it wants--a proof to me as much of necessity as of prosperity. Many more persons cannot engage profitably in the wool and tallow trade; the field is therefore narrow for general purposes of emigrants, and easily liable to be overstocked, unless the government take prompt measures to open out the abundant internal resources of minerals, &c. and give easier and cheaper possession of land: then, though the imports might not be much more, the prosperity would be much greater. America I believe to be in this latter position, presenting a more varied field for the operations of the small capitalist, though her imports may be inconsiderable per head.
I ought to state, that a great many of the reported cases of success are, from misapprehension of the real circumstances of the parties, either quite false, or calculated to mislead. Doubtless many successful hits will be made by purchasers of mineral land, and so are successful hits made at the gaming-table. Successful men, besides, are well known, while the unsuccessful have slunk away and are forgotten. Few fortunes have been made by simple shopkeeping.