*  *  *  Ladies and gentlemen, First of all I would like to thank the organisers for inviting me here and having the opportunity to share some thoughts with the participants of this very stimulating conference. In the late 6th century BC, Heraclitus said that there is nothing permanent except change.
14 The inter-regional effects of the boom, as in the 1850s, were very powerful. There were strong flows of labour to the new mine sites. The population of Western Australia increased from 48 000 to 180 000 during the 1890s; and the population of Broken Hill grew from 6 000 in 1888 to almost 20 000 in 1891.