Page:Victoria, with a description of its principal cities, Melbourne and Geelong.djvu/176

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THE COLONY IN 1856.
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to prove so profitable as to warrant its employment at high rates. Those who hesitate to bring out their wives and families whilst depending upon the uncertain resource of digging for themselves, will be encouraged to do so, having the prospect of a high remunerative employment, even without the chance of brilliant success.

A close relation subsisting between the supply and demand in the labour-market is calculated to accelerate the attainment of a healthful state of society; people now feel that time and attention are required to insure success, and that they must work steadily and perseveringly, nor will they any longer think only of acquiring fortune and returning home. As the society becomes better formed, the country better known and inhabited, its resources more fully developed, its government equable, free, and independent, they will reckon on a lengthened and continued residence; they will seek to surround themselves with their families; they will look upon Victoria as their home; and thus take a far deeper interest in the welfare of the colony. There is, indeed, every encouragement now for the colonist to gather his family round him. The question of education has engrossed the particular attention of the Legislature, and the Annual Report of the last year shows an increase in the number of schools and scholars, besides the different modern branches of education, unprecedented in the annals of any country; and whilst the national and denominational schools re-