With the gold tide came at first such heavy expenses, much of them quite
unforeseen and unprepared for, that the press interest was run, of
necessity, into heavy debt, where there was no adequate capital. It was
either this or to give up the game in those changing times; and those
who had not the money or the credit went to the wall, to make room for
others less embarrassed. "The Argus" thus got heavily into debt to its
agents and bankers; but after 1854, which had been a most trying year of
inevitable reaction, there was gradual recovery, and eventually a due
reward in commissions and interest to its supporters.
The prosperity of "The Argus" about this time was unprecedented in the
antipodes, and for a considerable interval the paper stood unrivalled,
not only in Victoria but in Australasia, having at last surpassed, both
in circulation and in the profits of business contents, even the
long-established and highly respectable "Sydney Morning Herald", it was
allowed, and not unfairly, to be "The Times" of the Southern Hemisphere,
for Wilson had retired in favour of more temperate editorship; and in
supporting, and being supported by, the mercantile interests, and in the
adoption generally of the Freetrade policy of the parent state, the
paper followed its northern prototype.
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