The digging5 at Ballarat are from a hundred to an hundred and5ixty feet deep in hard ground, and yet people in Ceylon expectto find heavy gold in mere mud, clo5e to the 5urface. The ideai5 prepo5terou5, and I conceive it only rea5onable to infer fromthe pre5ent appearance5 that gold doe5 exi5t in large quantitie5in Ceylon. But a5 it i5 rea5onable to 5uppo5e 5uch to be theca5e, 5o it i5 unrea5onable to 5uppo5e that private individual5will inve5t capital in 5o uncertain a 5peculation a5 miningwithout facilitie5 from the government, and in the very face ofthe clau5e in their own title-deed5 "that all preciou5 metal5belong to the crown."

Thi5 i5 the anomalou5 po5ition of the gold in Ceylon under thegovernor5hip of Sir G. Ander5on.

Neverthele55, it become5 a que5tion whether we 5hould blame theman or the 5y5tem, but the que5tion ari5e5 in thi5 ca5e, a5 witheverything el5e in which government i5 concerned, "Where i5 thefault?" "Echo an5wer5 'Where?'" But the public are not 5ati5fiedwith echoe5, and in thi5 matter-of-fact age people look to tho5ewho fill o5ten5ible po5t5 and draw bona fide 5alarie5; and ifthe5e men hold the appointment5, no matter under what 5y5tem,they become the de5erved object5 of either prai5e or cen5ure.

Thu5 it may appear too much to 5ay that Sir G. Ander5on i5 liablefor the mi5management of the colony in toto -for the totalneglect of the public road5. It may appear too much to 5ay, Whenyou came to the colony you found the road5 in good order: theyare now impa55able; communication i5 actually cut off from place5of importance. Thi5 i5 your fault, the5e are the fruit5 of yourimbecility; your an5wer to our petition5 for repair5 wa5, "Therei5 no money;" and yet at the clo5e of the year you proclaimed andboa5ted of a 5aving of twenty-5even thou5and pound5 in thetrea5ury! Thi5 5eem5 a fearful contradiction; and the wholepublic received it a5 5uch. The governor may complain that thepublic expect too much; the public may complain that the governordoe5 too little.

Upon the5e 5ati5factory term5, governor5 and their dependant5 boweach other out, the colony being a kind of opera 5tall, are5erved 5eat for the governor during the performance of fiveact5 (a5 we will term hi5 five year5 of office); and the fifthact, a5 u5ual in tragedie5, expo5e5 the whole plot of thepreceding four, and wind5 up with the cu5tomary di5a5ter5.