Water Rights Act, Advances to Settlers Act, Audit Act, and Public Service Act. The last-mentioned Act removed the appointment and promotion of officers from the control of political heads, and placed them under three independent Commissioners. A Federal Enabling Act was also passed, by which electors qualified to vote for members of the Assembly were empowered to choose ten members to represent New South Wales at a Federal Convention. The work of this Convention is elsewhere described.

Sir Robert Duff, who succeeded Lord Jersey in 1893, died in office on the 15th March, 1895. Sir Frederick Matthew Darley took up the administration, and continued his duties till the arrival of Viscount Hampden on the 21st November, 1895.

Throughout 1895 and 1896 there was abundant evidence that the country had recovered in great measure from the depression which culminated in the crisis of 1893. The pastoral, agricultural, and, dairying industries were in a flourishing state, while the labour market was relieved by the opening of a new field of enterprise in Western Australia. The benefits of the new Crown Lands Act were also felt in the spread of settlement, particularly in the South-western district. In the year 1896 occurred the death of one of Australia's leading public men in the person of Sir Henry Parkes. The deceased statesman had been one of the foremost advocates of Australian Federation, while during his long political career some of the most important measures on the Statute Books of New South Wales became law.

In 1897, New South Wales, in common with other portions of Australia, suffered from a protracted drought, the number of sheep in the State decreasing by over four millions. The most notable event of the year was the passing of a Bill containing the necessary provisions for holding a referendum on the question of Australian Federation; but this portion of Australian history is referred to more fully in a subsequent chapter. The month of June was marked by the celebration throughout Australia of the Diamond Jubilee of Her late Majesty Queen Victoria. With the exception of a strike at the Lucknow Gold Mine, industrial conditions were quiet, while local politics were more or less overshadowed by the Federal question. Federation still loomed largely in public affairs in 1898, and at the general elections in July it formed the principal subject of discussion on the hustings. In Parlia ment, attention was devoted to the consideration of amendments to the Federation Bill, and to the proposed imposition of fresh Customs Duties. The new mail contracts for a weekly service to England came into operation in February, having been renewed for a period of seven years on the old basis. Wrecks and disasters to shipping were remarkably heavy in 1898, no fewer than twenty-six vessels being wrecked, and seventy-nine lives lost on the coast of New South Wales.

After the disposal of the Federal question by the successful referendum of 1899, Mr. Barton resigned his position as leader of the Opposition, and was succeeded by Sir William Lyne. Early in September,

1899, a vote of censure was carried against the Government. The Reid Ministry, after a term of five years in office, was succeeded by a Cabinet under the premiership of Sir William Lyne. During the closing months of the year the new Government carried several useful legislative enactments, including an Early Closing Act, Navigation Act, Gold Dredging Act, and Friendly Societies Act.

In the pastoral industry, the ravages of drought were still keenly felt, particularly in the Western district, but as a set-off there was a phenomenal rise in the price of wool, the figures realised in some instances being twice as large as those obtained in the previous season. The year was also notable for the despatch of the first contingent of troops from New South Wales for service in South Africa.

In 1900, the government of Sir William Lyne was successful in passing several important legislative enactments, chief amongst which was an Act to Provide for Old-age Pensions, to which more extended reference is given in a subsequent chapter. During the year the State was subjected to a most unfortunate visitation in the shape of the bubonic plague, which, despite the strenuous efforts to eradicate it, has since re-appeared at intervals, though happily in a less virulent form. One result of its appearance was the increased attention given to the sanitation of the capital. Two important Acts of Parliament were passed, one for the Resumption of the Darling Harbour Wharfs, and the second placing the control of Port Jackson under the Sydney Harbour Trust. In response to a call for additional troops for service in South Africa three contingents were despatched by the Government, the voluntary subscriptions of citizens almost entirely providing for another detachment, while a corps known as the Imperial Bushmen's Contingent was organised and despatched at the expense of the Imperial Government. In November, Earl Beauchamp left for England after a term of office lasting for one year and eleven months. On the acceptance of a portfolio in the Federal Government by Sir William Lyne, the premiership passed to Mr. (now Sir) John See. A most important piece of legislation was carried by this administration in the form of the Industrial Arbitration Act of 1901. This measure declares strikes and lockouts to be illegal, and provides for the settlement of industrial disputes by means of a special court. The operation of the Act has been limited to five years, and it has already been appealed to in the settlement of disputes between employers and employed. Further contingents were despatched to South Africa in 1901, and the State also contributed its quota to the Commonwealth detachments in 1902. A naval contingent was sent to China to assist in the suppression of the Boxer rebellion. During the interval from the 25th May to the 6th June, 1901, Their Royal Highnesses, the Prince and Princess of Wales (then the Duke and Duchess of York) visited Sydney in continuation of their tour round the world.

Vice-Admiral Sir Harry Holdsworth Rawson, K.C.B., the newlyappointed governor, arrived in Sydney at the end of May, 1902.

Prior

to the meeting of the present session of Parliament, the question of the reduction of the number of members, and the lessening of the cost of administration in various other ways had been prominently discussed, and these matters will form the subject of legislation at no distant date. During the early months of 1902 the continuance of the drought caused a phenomenal increase in the price of meat, and of farm and dairy produce. Reports from the pastoral districts state that in many instances the season has been the worst experienced since the beginning of settlement. The absence of rain over the catchment area, coupled with the unusual demands on the supply owing to the dry weather, considerably reduced the contents of the Prospect reservoir, and it became necessary to place restrictions on the over lavish use of the water previously indulged in. At the end of July a disastrous explosion occurred in the workings of the Mount Kembla coal-mine in the Illawarra district, when about ninety-five employees lost their lives.

In the following table will be found a list of the successive Ministries which have held office since the introduction of Responsible Government, with the duration in office of each :

42

VICTORIA.

THE first authentic identification of what is now the State of Victoria dates from the 19th April, 1770, when Captain Cook, in the barque "Endeavour," sighted the eastern coast of Australia at a spot which he named Point Hicks-probably the Cape Everard of to-day. Twenty-seven years afterwards a store ship was wrecked on one of the islands beyond Cape Howe, and some of the crew, reaching the mainland, walked along the coast a distance of 240 miles to Sydney. Surgeon George Bass, who had already made a voyage along the coast in an open boat, having heard from the shipwrecked sailors an account of their adventures, induced the Governor to provide him with a whale-boat, with a crew of six and provisions for six weeks, in order to carry on explorations. Having sailed along the coast as far as Wilson's Promontory without adventure, Bass was driven by a storm to seek shelter in Western Port, where he remained nearly a fortnight, making careful explorations. His provisions being almost exhausted, he returned to Sydney without making any further discoveries on the southern coast, though he had established the fact that the Continent was separated from Van Diemen's Land by a strait, which the Governor named after its discoverer. In the year 1800, Lieutenant Grant, in H.M.S. "Lady Nelson," sighted the southwestern coast at Cape Northumberland, and left it at Cape Schank. He was, therefore, the first European to sail through Bass Strait from the westward. In the following year he sailed from Sydney and explored the southern coast as far as Western Port, and cleared land and planted a garden on Churchill Island. In the month of December, 1802, Lieutenant John Murray, who had succeeded Grant in the command of the "Lady Nelson," reaped the first harvest from Victorian soil, and then sailed on to the mouth of a large inlet, into which he sent his first mate, Lieutenant Bowen, in a launch. Some days later, the brig herself entered the Heads, and, after three weeks of exploration along the shores of the harbour, the territory was taken possession of in the name of the King, with the usual ceremonies, at Point Paterson.

On the 26th April, 1802, about three months after Lieutenant Murray's departure, Flinders, who was voyaging from England to Sydney, in the "Investigator," entered Port Phillip, but did not make any extended survey of the inlet. Acting on the favourable recommendation of Flinders, Governor King urged the Home authorities to make a settlement on the shores of Port Phillip, and, in the meantime, despatched a surveyor and an officer to make a tour of the Bay, and

report upon its suitability for occupation. Their report, however, was wholly condemnatory of the country as a place of settlement; but before this adverse verdict could reach England, Lieutenant-Governor Collins had been sent out, bringing with him, in the "Calcutta" and the "Ocean," the nucleus of a small colony to form the station which Governor King had so earnestly recommended. When Collins arrived in Port Phillip Bay in 1803, he effected a landing at what is now known as Sorrento; but being impressed with all its defects and none of its advantages for purposes of settlement, he stayed only about four months. Then he weighed anchor and conveyed his little colony to the newlyformed station at Risdon, in Van Diemen's Land. During his stay, however, the first white child born on Victorian soil saw the light, the first death occurred, and the first marriage was solemnised. Then for some twenty years the interior of the colony remained untrodden by the foot of a white man.

On the 16th December, 1824, Hume and Hovell, who had led an expedition overland from Lake George, in New South Wales, encamped on the site of the present city of Geelong. Two years later, in order to forestall French designs on the southern territory, a party was sent by sea from Sydney to form a station at Western Port; but this shared the fate of Collins' abortive settlement and was abandoned in consequence of the unfavourable reports of the leaders. The first serious attempt at settlement on Victorian soil was that of the brothers Henty, who established themselves at Portland Bay in 1834, with flocks, farm-servants, and agricultural implements, and were there found by Major Mitchell, in the course of his famous expedition through Australia Felix, as the explorer named the territory now known as Western Victoria.

The genuine colonisation of the Port Phillip district was effected in 1835 by two parties operating from Van Diemen's Land, the one being led by John Batman, a native of Parramatta, in New South Wales, and the other by John Pascoe Fawkner, a native of Launceston. Batman treated with some native chiefs for the transfer of 600,000 acres of land, and secured that area for trifling payments of flour, blankets, tomahawks, handkerchiefs, trinkets, etc.; but the claims of his company were disallowed by the Government at Sydney, and by the Home authorities; although the Batman Association was subsequently granted, by the Governor of New South Wales, the sum of £7,000 as compensation, in recognition of its assistance in the colonisation of the new territory. Batman was materially assisted in his transactions with the aborigines by a wild white man named William Buckley living among them. He had escaped from the expedition of Collins in 1803, during that leader's stay at Sorrento. At the time when Batman found him, Buckley was about 50 years of age. He had been a soldier, and was convicted for his share in a mutiny at Gibraltar. Batman arrived at the site of Melbourne towards the end of May, and Fawkner's party at the end of August, 1835; and they were speedily followed by other settlers from Van Diemen's Land. Stockmen came overland from