Washington Sentinel

From the London Times. December 13.

Interesting from Australia.

Successful Resistance of the Miners to THE BRITISH AUTHORITY. The intelligence which has just reached us from Australia is of extreme, interest. In order fully to appreciate its importance, we must recall a few facts intimately connected with each other, though separated by considerable intervals of time. The readers of the Times will remember that, immediately on the discovery of the gold fields in May, 1851, we lost no time in warning the government of the dangers with which a discovery apparently so full of promise was fraught. We showed that a large number of men of lawless habits and desperate character would be drawn together by the common attraction of the gold fields; that they would learn from their numbers the secret of their own strength; and that, if they had the will, they would certainly have the power to dictate their own terms to the executive government.

We urged an increase of the police to defend public property and enforce obedience to the law, and we pointed out that it was the duty of the government not to allow the golden deposits—the undoubted property of the public—to be rifled by the first comer for a consideration scarcely more than nominal. How well subsequent events have justified our foresight, is now unhappily only too apparent.

On the 7th of May, 1852, we recorded with shame and indignation that Mr. Latrobe, the governor of Port Phillip, having announced his intention of raising the license fee from thirty shillings to three pounds a month, the miners assembled together to the number of a thousand, and passed a resolution pledging themselves to protect any miner against whom the fee might be sought to be enforced. The government gave way without a struggle, and the miners were for a moment satisfied; but we took occasion to observe that after such a concession the authority of a government is gone, its weakness is confessed, and it only exists by the sufferance of a lawless multitude, to whom it has taught the terrible secret of their own strength. The same will which repealed with a breath the reasonable demand of government can break through other restrictions. There are no longer two parties to the contract between the gold seeker and the government. They take as much and pay as little as they please. The evil is only in its commencement. As these persons have met together by no concert, some time must elapse before they can be brought to act in unison, but every day brings us nearer to such a result Instead of the police being made really efficient, it seems, through a mistaken and most prodigal economy, to have been allowed to fall into absolute contempt. The inadequacy of salaries caused the best officers and men to resign, and they were replaced by persons morally and physically unfit for the duty. The diggers became enlightened as to the secret of their strength, and also as to the weakness of the body which professed to control them.

They were not slow to profit by the lesson. In June and July of this year meetings were held denouncing the license fee, and agreeing to a memorial praying for its reduction to ten shillings. At these meetings the most sanguinary threats were uttered, and one of them concluded with an attack on the police, who fled in terror. On the first of August the deputa tion waited on the governor with a memorial. signed by several thousand miners, requiring the immediate reduction of the license fee from thirty to ten shillings.

Mr. Latrobe answered, "What you ask me is impossible; I cannot destroy the law; I am sworn to do my duty, and am prepared for anything. While the license fee is law it must be obeyed; there are other and more important interests than the gold-diggers' to be considered." This answer brought matters to a crisis. The miners assembled with flags, and agreed to pay no more than ten shillings license fee, and to appoint a deputation to tender that sum to the commissioner. In answer to this demonstration, Mr. Latrobe published a letter, in which he argued the matter in dispute with calmness and ability. On the 28th of August a tumultuous meeting was held at Bendigo, and the ten shillings, in full payment for licenses, tendered to and refused by the commissioner. Guns were fired, a badge of resistance, a red ribbon, was adopted, the miners abstained from taking out licenses for the next month, and separated after announcing their intention to re-assemble on the 1st of September. They had no occasion to do so; on the 30th day of that very August, on the first of which Mr. Latrobe had so emphatically refused to lower the license fee, the legislative council of Victoria met, and it was thus that a panic stricken governor addressed a craven legislature:

"The objections to the present license fee, and the practical difficulties in the way of collecting it, have forced themselves latterly so forcibly upon me, that I am disposed to propose to you its total abolition, merely reserving a registration fee for police purposes. A loss of revenue to a large amount will thus be incurred, which I propose to supply by a revision of the tariff, including an export duty on gold."

On the 1st of September, the gum trees at the gold fields were placarded with notices of the intention of the government, but drawn up in such abject terror, that of two documents, prepared on the same day, one asserted and the other denied that the license fee for the current month would be collected. A hurried committee of the legislative council recommended, as a matter of urgency, the passing of a temporary act, fixing the license fee at forty shillings for the remaining three months of the year—a sum which, after the declaration of the governor, will of course never be collected, and can only be considered as a decent prelude to allowing the tax to drop altogether.

As was the case when they defeated the attempt to increase the license fee, the miners for a moment are satisfied, and a short lived tranquility is procured. But who shall say how long that tranquility shall last? How long will those who refuse to pay a compensation for the public property which they appropriate. submit to pay it indirectly in the form of an export duty? What injustice can be greater than to impede the operations of commerce and the acquisition of the necessaries of life. in order to grant perfect impunity to a class already in possession of incredible riches?

Of course, the abandonment of the license fee in Victoria will draw after its abolition in New South Wales, and just at the moment when an increased revenue is required, the colonies will find themselves stripped of what they already possess.