sition, are you not, as intelligent and honest men, and accountable beings, bound to use every suitable means within your power for its overthrow? The following extract strikingly exhibits the value of entire abstinence from the use of alcoholic liquors:—
"The Argo has brought the news of the safe arrival at Melbourne of the John Barrow, the first Griffiths, Newcombe and Co.'s temperance line of packets, with about 150 passengers. The commander, Captain Carey, states that during the voyage no intoxicating drinks were taken by the passengers or crew, or even administered as medicine. He adds, that not only were there no deaths on board, but not a single case of sickness. The passengers expressed themselves much pleased with the provisions, and the conduct of the officers; and twenty of them, including the surgeon, signed the temperance pledge."
Another pamphlet just published in London by Mr. Westgarth only came into my hands yesterday. It contains his Address to the Chamber of Commerce, Melbourne, for the year ending April, 1852, as well as for the year 1853, from which I have so largely extracted; and the comparison between the two years exhibits yet more strongly the astonishing progress of the colony of Victoria, than the statistics I have just laid before you.
The imports for the year amounted in value to £4,069,742, or nearly four times the value of the previous year. In these were comprised:—
| 822,829 | Gallons of | Beer and Ale |
| 811,424 | " | Spirits |
| 408,376 | " | Wine |
A quantity of foreign intoxicating stimulants, sufficient to account (without any home-manufacture of them) for all the atrocious crime in the colony, without any reference to the convict population. Mr. Westgarth makes no allusion to this fruitful source of misery and demoralization, in either of his addresses. Speaking of the gold raised, he says, "We have a quantity of gold, amounting to nearly five million of ounces, the whole of which, excepting some fractional proportion, has been raised from the soil of this colony within the period of sixteen months."
The wonderful condition of affairs, developed by the extraordinary progress in wealth exhibited in the statement I have no laid before you, must give rise to many serious reflections. May wisdom and virtue, more largely than have yet characterized the majority of mankind under somewhat similar circumstances, enable all parties, at home and abroad, correctly to estimate the advantages and disadvantages of this unexpected discovery of mineral wealth.
