value of private wealth, the incomes being distinguished into total incomes and those over £200 a year :

Taking Australia as a whole, the assessment placed upon private property appears to be about five times the annual income; Western Australia being the only state which departs in any marked degree from this proportion. In that state the assessment is only two and a half times, and this low ratio is accounted for by the circumstance that a large proportion of the private property of the state is represented by gold-mines, and the value of a gold-mine is rarely large compared with the payments made for wages and other services connected with its working.

As the fair distribution of the income of a country is of more importance to the population at large than the aggregate amount of all incomes, it is interesting to know what proportion of the population enjoys large incomes, and if the incomes of the great mass of the population are affected by the accumulation of large incomes in few hands. In the present condition of statistics no great amount of light can be thrown upon the question, although some interesting facts may be gleaned from the particulars already given. The unit for the most useful comparison in regard to incomes is the bread-winner; but as there are both male and female bread-winners it is necessary to take into account the less commercial and productive value of women's work compared with men's. Taking the productive employments of New South Wales and Victoria as a basis, it is found that the earnings of thirty-six men equal those of one hundred women, and if this wage efficiency holds good throughout Australia the work of the 1,560,784 male and 422,123 female bread-winners at the census of 1901 would be equivalent to that of 1,712,748 male bread-winners alone; and comparisons of earnings should therefore be made on the basis of this last number and not on the total 1,982,907 of male and female breadwinners taken together. There is, however, another consideration. Australia has not yet developed a class of independent women workers.

It is true there are considerable numbers of women who are the main bread-winners of their families, but as a rule the earnings of the woman go to supplement the earnings of the head of the family, usually the house-father, and there are some cogent reasons why the comparison of earnings and population should be made on the basis of the number of families to be supported, and this, for practical purposes, may be taken as indicated by the number of male bread-winners, and on such basis the following table has been compiled :-

the

New Zealand........

This statement forms a corrective to the table on page 322 giving average income per inhabitant. In that table South Australia and Victoria show the smallest incomes of any of the states, viz., £40.3 and £43.7 respectively, as compared with an average of £45.9 for New South Wales and £44.8 for Queensland; it would now appear that compared with the male bread-winners the average income below £200 a year is equal in Victoria to what it is in Queensland and in New South Wales, viz., £103, while in South Australia it is £97. As regards incomes over £200, the return for Victoria (£645) is largely in excess of the average for the Commonwealth; but for South Australia the average (£317) is much below that of the other states, although there is compensation in the fact that such incomes are widely distributed; thus in South Australia 11.3 per cent of all incomes exceed £200 as compared with 45 in Queensland, 5.9 in Western Australia, and 6.6 in New South Wales and Tasmania, and the comparison would be still more favourable if the absentee incomes drawn by Victoria and South Australia from the other states could have been brought into consideration.

As the income of every country depends largely upon its production, a comparison of incomes and production is interesting. No general law can be laid down as to the relation between the two, but it will be found that the more various and developed the industries the greater will be the income which results from production.

The following is the ratio of the incomes obtained in each state to the value of production in that state, as set out on page 913.

It will be seen that in each case the incomes exceed the production ; in Western Australia, however, the excess is very little above 2 per cent., whereas in the case of Victoria the excess is nearly 78 per cent. The low percentage of income given off by production in the case of Western Australia is explained by the fact that of the total production of £12,544,000, the value of gold won exceeds £7,000,000, and the income given off, so to speak, by this production is far less than the value of the production itself, for the winning of gold not only is a costly process, but when the precious metal is obtained, the cost of carriage and handling and other expenses form but a trifling percentage of its value.

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RAILWAYS.

To the proper development of a country like Australasia, ill-supplied

with navigable rivers, railway construction is absolutely essential. This has been recognised from an early period, and for the last forty years the Governments of the principal states have been fully alive to the importance of carrying on the work. For a long time, however, they were hampered in their efforts by the difficulty of borrowing money in London at a reasonable rate of interest; but since the year 1871 considerable progress has been made in the work of construction; indeed, by far the greater portion of the public debt of Australasia has been contracted for railway purposes. As the area of the six states and New Zealand almost equals that of Europe or the United States of America, while the population numbers a little over four and a half millions, it is almost needless to say that many of the lines run through districts very sparsely peopled. This is particularly the case in the states of Queensland, South Australia, and Western Australia, where there are vast tracts of territory in which little in the nature of permanent settlement has yet been accomplished, and in none of the states can it be said that the railway lines traverse thickly-settled areas. Indeed, if a fault may be found with the state policy pursued in the past, it is that in some cases expensive lines have been laid down in empty country the requirements of which could have been effectually met for many years to come by light and cheap lines, and that in consequence the railway administrators find themselves heavily burdened with a number of unprofitable lines. A few of these have been closed, and the remainder are worked at a loss. Notwithstanding these drawbacks, however, the railways of the Commonwealth of Australia collectively yield a net return equal to 2.51 per cent., and those of Australasia 2.61 per cent. on the cost of construction.

HISTORY OF RAILWAY CONSTRUCTION.

An agitation for the introduction of the railway into the colony of New South Wales was afoot as early as 1846, and in August of that year it was decided at a public meeting held in Sydney to survey a line to connect the capital with Goulburn. But no decided step was taken towards construction until September, 1848, when the Sydney Railroad and Tramway Company was formed for the purpose of laying down a line between Sydney and Parramatta and Liverpool, to be after wards extended to Bathurst and to Goulburn. The first sod was turned by the Hon. Mrs. Keith Stewart, daughter of Sir Charles Fitzroy, the

Governor of the colony, on the 3rd July, 1850. Although started during a period of trade depression, when there was an abundant supply of labour, the scheme was only well under weigh when the discovery of gold caused a stampede from the city, and the company was left without workmen to carry on the undertaking. Undeterred, however, by the difficulties into which the changing conditions of the country had plunged the Sydney Railroad and Tramway Company, private enterprise in 1853 essayed the further task of constructing a line between Newcastle and Maitland; but this project proved no more successful than the other, and in the following year the Government was forced to step in and carry out the schemes for which the two companies had been promoted. From that time the work of construction was vigorously pressed forward, and on the 26th September, 1855, the line from Sydney to Parramatta, 14 miles in length, was opened to traffic; and on the 11th April, 1857, Newcastle was connected with East Maitland. The extension to Goulburn of the Sydney line was completed on the 27th May, 1869.

While the Sydney Railroad and Tramway Company was endeavouring to surmount the obstacles that had arisen in its path, the work of railway construction was begun in the neighbouring state of Victoria, no fewer than three private companies being promoted in 1853 for that purpose. Material assistance in the shape of land grants and guarantee of interest was afforded by the Government; and on the 13th September, 1854, the first completed railway in Australasia, a line extending from Flinders-street, Melbourne, to Port Melbourne, was opened to traffic. It had been begun nearly three years after the line to connect Sydney with Parramatta, but was only 2 miles long. No further mileage was brought into operation until May 13, 1857, when the Melbourne and Hobson's Bay Railway Company, which had constructed the first line, effected communication with St. Kilda; and on the 17th June of the same year a line from Williamstown to Geelong, 39 miles in length, which had been built by another company, was declared open. Meanwhile the Government of the state had not remained inactive. In addition to assisting private enterprise with liberal concessions, it had taken over in 1855 an unfinished line started by the third of the companies referred to, and was carrying on the work of construction on its own account. By the year 1863 it had acquired all the lines in the state with the exception of those owned by the Melbourne and Hobson's Bay Company, which were not purchased until the year 1878.

Although a line from Goolwa to Port Elliot, 6 miles in length, over which the locomotive now passes, was opened on the 18th May, 1854, it was at that time merely a horse tramway; and the first railway in South Australia was a line connecting the city with Port Adelaide, 74 miles long, which was thrown open to traffic on the 21st April, 1856. The following year saw a railway constructed as far north as Gawler; while on the 1st October, 1889, a line from Palmerston to Pine Creek, in the Northern Territory, which had been built by the South Australian Government, was opened, the length being 1453 miles.