CRISIS OF 1840-3 19 
respect it can again be compared with the later crises; and it 
affords one more reason for concluding that the essential causes 
of our business troubles have not changed throughout the years. 
The gradual approach of the first great financial crisis in our 
history can be clearly discerned in the trend disclosed by these 
figures, and they are sufficient ground for assuming, in the light 
of later business disasters, that there was at this time an in- 
flation of credit at a greater rate than that of the increase in 
reserves, which were, in fact, almost stationary for most of the 
period. 
TaBLe IT! 
Population and Bank Reserves of New South Wales 
Fear. 
1836 
1837 
1838 
1839 | 
1840 
1841 
1842 
1843 
1844 
184.5 
Population. 
78,929 
86,482 
98,176 
113,437 
127,468 
145,303 
162,317 
169,315 
178,460 
187.918 
Coin and Bullion 
in Treasury 
and Banks. 
x= 
420,720 
427,432 
520,127 
516,069 
397,581 
162,624 
175,389 
423,972 
659,023 
855.166 
(a) 
Reserves as 
dmount per head. 
. 
ee. 1. 
J. 
) 6 2 
+10 2 
21 5 
109 
a 
(a) To cover the shortage of currency in this year debentures % the amount 
of £49,500 were issued. 
It is impossible to close this brief survey of the vicissitudes 
of the early years without some further reference to the course of 
events in South Australia.2 This model colony, founded on the 
theory that the sale of land would pay the primary expenses of 
development, had, under Gawler, gone far towards Proving the 
essential soundness of the theory ; but the requests for assistance 
from the Imperial Government had led to a drastic change in 
the administration. In this way the province had provided the 
initial impulse which led to suspicion and distrust in the mind 
" From the official Statistical Abstract for Colonial Possessions for the years 
concerned, and for previous table. 
? An excellent account of the crisis and of the curious circumstances from which 
it arose is given by A. G. Price in The Foundation and Settlement of South Australio.