It is quite impossible for me to describe to your Lordship the effect these discoveries have had upon the whole community... Not only have the idlers, to be found in every community, and day labourers in town and their adjacent country shopmen, artisans, and mechanics of every description, thrown up their employments, and in most cases, leaving their employers and their wives and families to take care of themselves, run off to the workings, but responsible tradesmen, farmers, clerks of every grade and not a few of the superior classes have followed … it would be quite impossible to withstand such a general popular movement … there is but one way, and that, to let the current spend itself, and meanwhile see that as far as possible it is kept within proper bounds …
Charles La Trobe