S6 A D E L A I I ) E A N I) V I.C I N I T Y r^e Husbandmen Allen— •• History of Australia from 1787 to 1882 "—who evinces marked animosity to him, siiys Ciovernor Grey carried out retrenchment with " a ruthlessness which showed that he had no • bowels of compassion.' " South Australia had entered the second critical stage in her history. So strained were affairs, that a little mistake was likely to endanger her progress for many years, but the day of trial is not necessarily a day of evil, even as sickness in precipitating a crisis is frequently beneficial to the human frame. Governor Gawler gave an undoubted impulse to the Province, but public energy was not applied in the right direction. Inflation became a disease, the financial crisis was the climax, and Governor Grey's retrenchment, combined with well-directed industrial effort, the cure. It would be difiicult to give an accurate description of the state of the Province at the beginning of 1842, without entering into tedious detail. The recent news from England had inspired a little hope ; but when subsistence seems doubtful in the interval, a distant e.xpectation affords poor consolation. Many of those who held on in hope of better times distrusted their own judgment when they observed others hurrying away. City land, for which fancy prices had been paid, was sold for the cost of the title deeds ; houses were let rent free. Ready money was so scarce that a sovereign, or even a half- crown piece, was seldom seen — a modified system of barter was indulged in. The number of unemployed was increasing, and the population of the cit)' rapidly going down. Out of 1,915 houses in Adelaide, 642 became vacant in 1842, and 216 had fallen into decay. Poorly clothed, and sometimes poorly fed, persons wandered about the streets until they were forced to tramp the country districts in search of work, in the meantime de|x;ndent for a meal on the charity of strangers. A score or more of men were imprisoned for debt, and Governor Grey had to pre])are a Bill for their relief Some 136 writs for the recovery of debts passed through the hands of the Sheriff during the year. The business men who were able to hold up their heads had to reduce domestic expenditure, and, in giving long credit, live in a precarious manner. Newspapers graphically pictured the ruin of previous hopes, and discussed the question, " Shall we re-emigrate ? " There was dejjression in every article of merchandise, and all kinds of colonial property, and, says H odder, " . . . Sixteen thousand persons were plunged in more or less distress, which could be alleviated only by assistance from without ; that is to say, the importation of capital into the Colony." A public meeting, held Eebruary 19, informed Governor Grey that the " operations of agriculture are clogged almost to cessation ; that our merchants only exist by sufferance of the banks and large companies; that the profitless pursuits of our tradesmen are daily terminating in insolvency ; that our laborers are seeking other shores or are sunk into a condition of pauperism ; and that hundreds of families not referable to either of the before-mentioned classes find at length that they have exchanged wholesome abundance in Plngland for a bare and precarious subsistence here . . . . " By only completing the public works which were indis]5ensable, by reducing
