#2. Monetary Crisis.#--During twelve years of unalloyed prosperity, so many fortunes had been made that the road to wealth seemed securely opened to all who landed in the colony. Thus it became common for new arrivals to regard themselves, on their first landing, as already men of fortune, and, presuming on their anticipated wealth, they often lived in an expensive and extravagant style, very different from the prudent and abstemious life which can alone secure to the young colonist the success he hopes for. In Sydney the most profuse habits prevailed, and in Melbourne it seemed as if prosperity had turned the heads of the inhabitants. The most expensive liquors were the ordinary beverages of waggoners and shepherds; and, on his visit to Port Phillip in 1843, Governor Gipps found the suburbs of Melbourne thickly strewed with champagne bottles, which seemed to him to tell a tale of extravagance and dissipation.
#3. Land Laws.#--Whilst many of the younger merchants were thus on their way to ruin, and the great bulk of the community were kept impoverished by their habits, the English Government brought matters to a crisis by its injudicious interference with the land laws. The early years of South Australia, and its period of trouble, have been already described. In 1840 South Australia was on the verge of bankruptcy, and the Wakefield policy of maintaining the land at a high price had not produced the results anticipated. Now, many of the greatest men in England were in favour of the Wakefield theory; and, in particular, the Secretary of State for the Colonies--that is, the member of the British Government whose duty it is to attend to colonial affairs was a warm supporter of the views of Wakefield; so that when the people of South Australia complained that their scheme could not be successful so long as the other colonies charged so low a price for their land, he sympathised with them in their trouble. "Who," they asked, "will pay one pound an acre for land in South Australia, when, by crossing to Port Phillip, he can obtain land equally good at five shillings an acre?" To prevent the total destruction of South Australia, the Secretary of State ordered the other colonies to charge a higher price for land. New South Wales was to be divided into three districts. (1) The Middle District, round Port Jackson, where land was never to be sold for less than twelve shillings an acre. (2) The Northern District, round Moreton Bay, where the same price was to be charged. (3) The Southern District, round Port Phillip, where the land was of superior quality, and was never to be sold for less than one pound an acre.