starve the Burmese into submission by intercepting the
supplies of rice from the lower provinces.

There are accounts from Australia to the 5th of
April. The news in the journals presents a striking
picture of the progress of the country, especially of the
colony of Victoria. To illustrate this, some figures
maybe quoted. In 1851 the population of Victoria had
risen to 95,000, in 1852 it was 200,000; the shipping
inwards in 1851 was 126,000 tons, in 1852 it was 408,000
tons; the revenue in 1851 was £380,000, in 1852 it was
£1,577,000—£342,000 raised from customs duties. In
1851 the value of imports was £1,0.56,000, in 1852 it
was £4,044,000; exports in the former year were
£1,424,000, in the latter £7,452,000 But, taking into
the account gold carried out without being recorded,
the exports were probably £15,000,000, or £75 per head
for every man, woman, and child. The Legislature of
Victoria has sanctioned three railways, and has voted
£720,000 for public works. The railways will connect
Melbourne with the port, with Geelong, and with the
gold–fields. The population of Melbourne has increased
from 23,000 in 1851 to 80,000 in 1852; that of Geelong
in the same period from 8000 to 20,000. But fodder
and provisions have been very dear. Hay, weight for
weight, is dearer than the best flour; oats twice as dear
as the best oatmeal; cabbages are 1s. 6d. each; pears,
lettuces, and turnips, are 6s. a dozen; potatoes, 24s.
per hundredweight; ducks 12s. a pair; geese and
turkies, 14s. each.

According to advices from Quebec to the 2nd inst.,
the Canadian Parliament has adjourned, after a
session of considerable importance. A decimal currency
has been established. The grand trunk railway
has been organised, and on so sound a footing that the
stock is at a premium in England. Four hundred miles
of the road will probably be finished before the 1st of
January. An Ocean Steam Navigation Company has
been incorporated, and the two pioneer vessels have
already made the voyage. An increase in the
representation of the province, from which very salutary
results are anticipated, has been carried. A law
facilitating the settlement of wild lands has been added
to the statute book. Increased security has been given
to municipal debentures in Upper Canada by the
Consolidated Loan Fund Act. A measure providing for
the better treatment of lunatics has been adopted. All
religious sects have been placed on a footing of equality
as regards the celebration of marriage. Finally, the
Legislative Council, as at present constituted, has been
formally condemned, and the way paved for an elective
Senate.

Intelligence has been received from Jamaica to the
27th of June. Affairs had not approached any nearer
to a settlement. Public business was at a stand still,
and the Treasury continued to be closed against all
claimants. Governor Grey had carried out the intentions
he expressed, and had liberated a considerable
number of convicts. As maybe imagined, the state of
anarchy caused great public discontent. Much attention
was paid to the alleged discoveries of copper–mines
at Clarendon, St. Andrew, Metcalfe, and Portland.
Yellow fever prevailed among the shipping at Kingston.

PROGRESS OF EMIGRATION AND COLONISATION.

On the 20th a dinner was given at Greenwich to
Mr. Godley, the leader of the settlers to the New
Colony of Canterbury in New Zealand, on his return
from that settlement. Lord Wharncliffe presided, and
among the company were Lord Lyttelton, Sir J. Parkington,
Mr. Addcrley, Mr. Monsell, Mr. Stafford, Mr. H.
Herbert, Captain Taylor, and other gentlemen noted for
their exertions on the subject of emigration. Mr.
Godley's health having been given, and warmly received,
he addressed the company, giving an account of the
present state and prospects of the colony, with a view to
correct the impression that it has proved a failure. In
the course of his remarks he said: "During my stay in
the colony, 22 ships arrived there from England,
bringing about 3400 immigrants, well–selected, with
the proportion of the sexes duly preserved, and,
generally speaking, of good character and industrious
habits. I calculate that from three to four hundred
people came to us from neighbouring colonies, and that
the gold fever and other causes have deprived us
temporarily of about five hundred. The present population,
therefore, may be set down at 3300 Europeans, and
they are, take them for all in all, as good materials,
morally and physically, as any colony was ever
composed of. Of the site of the colony there can be but
one opinion, namely, that it was not only the best
accessible to us in any part of the world, but that, by
peculiar good fortune, it was the most advantageous,
though the last selected, site for a settlement in New
Zealand. The district consists of low hills and level
prairies. It is not of uniform fertility, but the whole of
it is admirably adapted for carrying stock. We calculate
it to contain five or six millions of acres available for
pasturage, which in the natural state will carry at a
very low computation two million sheep. These will
produce seven million pounds of wool, worth at present
prices, say, £500,000 Add £100,000 for tallow, hides,
and farm produce (a very low estimate), and you will
have on the whole produce to the amount of £600,000,
necessarily exported from Lyttelton, and you will have
on the other hand the supplies which the producing
population will require, drawn either from the same
place, so far as they are sea–borne, or from the
agricultural district surrounding Christchurch. The number
of sheep in the district which I have been describing
is at this moment at least 100,000, which will yield,
after the next shearing, exportable produce to the
value of £25,000, to which must be added a considerable
sum as the value of cheese, which is now bringing
fourteenpence a pound, for export to Melbourne, so
that the exports of the district during the ensuing
year, that is the third year after the foundation of the
colony, will be not less than at the rate of £8 per
head of the population, or three times as much as the
proportion of exports to population in the United Kingdom.
The obstacles to cultivation in a new country are
such as generally to extend longer than you would deem
possible the period of imported subsistence. New South
Wales did not feed itself for a great many years;
Wellington does not feed itself now. Well, the people
of Canterbury raised, last season, potatoes enough for
their consumption. There were 500 acres under wheat,
which will give about two–thirds of the consumption.
After next harvest the settlement will cease to import
the main articles of subsistence. This is a true picture
of the state of the colony as regards its industry and its
commerce, I ask you, does it look like failure?" Mr.
Godley proceeded to describe the church–accommodation
in the settlement and the provision made for education;
and went on to say: "I do not wish to depict the
colony as a Utopia, either physically or socially; but I
say that, taking it as a new country, and comparing it
with other new countries, it is, on the whole, the best
and most desirable I have seen or heard of. It is always
a misfortune to be obliged to emigrate, but if I were
obliged to emigrate myself I would go to Canterbury
and it is the place to which I should always recommend
any one in whom I had an interest to go if compelled to
leave England. He will find a healthy, though not
always a very pleasant climate; agreeable society;
most, if not all, of the essential elements of civilisation;
and I have no doubt whatever the best investment for a
small capital now to be had in the world. I repeat that
taking the rate of profit, and the absence of risk together,
a capital of from £1500 to £5000 cannot in my opinion
be so advantageously invested in any other way as in
dairy–farming or sheep–keeping on the plains of New
Zealand." In conclusion, Mr. Godley said, "Do not be
afraid to leave your colonies to themselves; throw
them into the water and they will swim. Depend upon
it the greatest boon you can bestow upon colonies is
what Burke calls 'a wise and salutary neglect.' To
this rule the Canterbury colony is no exception. It is
fortunate for it that the association's career has been
brief as well as effective; now it must go alone. It
has been called into existence, it has been given its
opportunities, it has been started on its way; henceforth
it must work out its own destinies. The Canterbury