Inaugural and Anniversary Addresses of the Royal Society
Inaugural Address, delivered by Mr. Justice Barry, President of the Institute, at the Opening Converzazione, 22nd Sept., 1854
Inaugural Address of the President, Captain Clarke, R. E., Surveyor-General, &c., &c.
Anniversary Address of the President, the Honourable Andrew Clarke, Captain R. E., M.P., Surveyor-General of Victoria, &c., &c., &c.
Anniversary Address of the President, His Honor Sir William Foster Stawell, Knight, Chief Justice of Victoria, &c., &c. [Delivered to the Members of the Institute, 12th April, 1858]
Anniversary Address of the President, Ferdinand Mueller, Esq., Ph.D., M.D. F.R.G. and L.S., &c., &c. [Delivered to the Members of the Institute, 28th March, 1859]
Address of the President, Ferdinand Mueller, M.D., Ph.D., F.R.G. & L.S., &c., &c. [Delivered to the Members of the Institute at the Inauguration of the Hall, January 23rd, 1860.]
Inaugural Address of the President, His Excellency Sir Henry Barkly, K.C.B., &c., &c. [Delivered to the Members of the Royal Society, at the Anniversary Meeting held on the 10th April, 1860.]
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It is the peculiar duty of an institution like this to combat this evil as powerfully as it can, and to censure as strongly; but it would be unjust to attach an undue share of blame to individuals, or to a small section of the people, for what is unhappily too marked a feature in our whole social system. The failure of the scheme but illustrates the spirit which pervades all classes, and though we may cheerfully look forward to a period when Science in Victoria shall have her temples and her worshippers, these will not be numerous or wealthy, until the people have learned, by costly experience, that to neglect her admonitions, is to neglect the best sources of prosperity.
Events have shown that if we continue unmindful of the means of wealth which are open to us, if we depend exclusively upon our neighbours for those substances without which the arts cannot exist, Victoria must give place to those more enterprising countries.
Already in New South Wales the manufacture of iron has, I understand, become an important branch of industry,—and unlike the precious metals—where iron is found in abundance—there material prosperity is attendant upon nationalindustry and steady endeavour. Unlike a search for the more glittering ores, it is permanent. It never dazzles us with the promise of enormous and rapidly acquired wealth, and it never disappoints the wise enterprise of the experienced. Abundantly favoured with extensive ariferous fields, let us endevour to divert the labour of the immigrant from such a channel, and chiefly lend our aid to better, because more enduring operations.
Independent of our extensive auriferous fields, it may be presumed that we have at hand in our coal and our iron ore the elements of a prosperity to which the wealth of the gold mines is insignificant. Still these be neglected because the gold mines are not yet exhausted? On the contrary, should we not endevour the more actively to construct a lasting foundation on which the prosperity of the country may rest secure.
I am the more inclined to press these views upon the members, because outside there is a tendency to view the gold districts of the colony as the only means of support to a large population, as the the sole resource which is open to the enterprize of the industrious.
It is not my opinion that the auriferous lands are in any locality exhausted, or that they will suddenly cease to reward the Iibour of the miner. On the contrary, I believe that as science, machinery and capital, are brought to bear on the extraction of gold from the matrix, and its separation front the alluvium, we shall have a larger and a steadier yield, and consequently larger and more certain earnings to the miner.
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