CRISIS OF 1840-3 17 
before the veto of the British authorities was received or the 
Crown Law Office could intervene. As for the landowners 
Governor Gipps reported that ‘persons with colonial property 
as the only wherewithal to meet engagements were drawn in 
crowds to the insolvency court’. The condition of the newly- 
arrived immigrants was a keen embarrassment to the govern- 
ment, but far more pitiable was the lot of the town workers, 
who were glad to take half a crown a day when work was pro- 
curable. 
It will be seen that the features of this crisis follow fairly 
closely the orthodox sequence of events, but a closer examina. 
tion will reveal how nearly the main features agree with the 
movements we should be led to expect by the theory of inter- 
national trade. Here was a community of small population, 
wholly dependent upon primary industries, and drawing its 
Dhecessary developmental capital from Great Britain alone. 
The tendencies in finance and trade accord very fully with later 
movements on a larger scale in Australia and in other countries 
of recent settlement. It becomes of interest, therefore, to analyse 
in greater statistical detail the conditions that pertained in 
Australia for the decade between 1833 and 1843. In particular, 
it becomes important to trace the effects on the monetary 
system of the introduction of capital at a more rapid rate than 
it could be absorbed; and to observe the trend of overseas 
trade as a consequence of this expansion of capital. The small 
volume of trade as compared with later years and the small 
number of banks then operating do not in any way vitiate 
comparison, butratherserve, by eliminating subsidiary elements, 
to strengthen the conclusion that the same fundamental factors 
have been affecting Australian prosperity from the early days 
of settlement. 
We may consider, first, the movement of commodities into 
and out of Australia for the period, and the resulting trade 
balance. The predominance of imports begins as early as 1828, 
when the capital importations begin to be noticeable. By 1833 
& swelling flood of imported commodities was Pouring into 
the colonies in a volume far greater than could be turned 
to economic uses. And each year thereafter saw a greater and 
more rapid accretion to the flood which was already choking 
the channels of trade. With the continuance of these conditions 
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