The financial position of Tasmania has been for several years one of some difficulty. The following figures show the changes that have taken place during the last three years :

:

The state Treasury was, therefore, in a less favourable position on the 31st December, 1901, by £122,334, than three years previously, but only £15,047 of this sum was due to the operation of the federal tariff.

Where the position of the states is now less favourable than in 1898-9, it may be attributed, first, to increase of expenditure upon the services remaining with the state, and secondly, to the loss of interstate duties. The value of the latter, at the date of the establishment of the Commonwealth, was:—

Western Australia, for the present, retains its interstate duties, while New South Wales and South Australia receive back more from the new duties than they received from the old duties, including those on interstate goods. In the case of Victoria, the return by the Commonwealth is only £90,059 less than in 1889, and Tasmania only £15,047 less, representing in each instance the approximate cost of the new services of federation, a charge which all the states might have looked forward to bearing without disturbance to their finances.

As will be seen from the chapter dealing with State Finance, the Treasurers of the states are seeking, by means of retrenchment and increased taxation, to balance their accounts.

It is well, perhaps, that this resolution has been taken, for a little consideration will show that it is idle, so far as concerns some of the states, to expect a return from the Commonwealth equal to satisfying their needs on the basis of expenditure indulged in by them during 1902. The following would need to be the amount of customs and excise duties to be levied by the Commonwealth to enable each state to receive back sufficient to balance its finances as on the 30th June, 1902. In order to show the measure of responsibility to be attached to the states, a column has been added showing the customs and excise revenue that

would have sufficed had their requirements been not greatar than in

1899:

It will thus be seen that whereas a tariff from which £7,940,000 is obtainable would, at the present time (1902), satisfy the requirements of the New South Wales Treasurer, it would take one yielding £13,559,000 to satisfy South Australia, the other states occupying positions at various intervals between the extremes. If, however, there had been no expansion of expenditure between 1899 and 1902, the required tariff might have ranged between £5,031,000 for New South Wales and £11,418,000 for Queensland.

It will have been observed from a previous table in this chapter, and in the part of this volume dealing with "State Finance," that the requirements of the State Treasurers vary greatly from year to year; it would be hopeless, therefore, for the Commonwealth Treasurer to endeavour to adjust his revenue to the needs of any state; still more hopeless would it be for him to attempt to mould his revenue to suit the variations in the requirements of six states. Hence the obvious policy of fixing a reasonable sum to be raised through the Customs House, and allowing the states to adjust their incomes and expenditures to the revenue thus provided.

832

RELIGION.

THE HE progress of all matters relating to denominational Religion since the early years of Australasian settlement has been steady and remarkable. For the first fifteen years after the foundation of the colony of New South Wales, only a single denomination was recognised by Government or possessed either minister or organisation-the Estallished Church of England. In those days the whole of Australasia was ecclesiastically within the diocese of the Bishop of Calcutta, of which it formed an Archdeaconry; this continued until 1836, when the bishopric of Australia was constituted, and the Rev. William Grant Broughton, D.D. (formerly Archdeacon), was consecrated the first Bishop. In 1841 the bishopric of New Zealand was established, and in 1842 that of Tasmania. Considerable changes took place in 1847, when the dioceses of Melbourne, Adelaide (including South Australia and Western Australia), and Newcastle (including the northern portion of what is now New South Wales, and the whole of Queensland) were established, and the Bishop of Australia was styled Bishop of Sydney and Metropolitan of Australia and Tasmania. In 1857 the diocese of Perth was formed out of that of Adelaide, and in 1859 the diocese of Brisbane out of that of Newcastle; in 1863 the bishopric of Goulburn was separated from Sydney; in 1867 the bishopric of Grafton and Armidale was formed out of part of the diocese of Newcastle; in 1869 Bathurst was separated from Sydney; in 1875 Victoria was divided into the two dioceses of Melbourne and Ballarat ; in 1878 the bishopric of Northern Queensland was established, with Townsville as seat of its Bishop; in 1884 the diocese of Riverina was formed out of parts of the dioceses of Bathurst and Goulburn; in 1892 parts of the bishoprics of Brisbane and Northern Queensland were formed into the new diocese of Rockhampton; in 1898 the bishopric of British New Guinea was established, and in 1900 the new diocese of Carpentaria was formed in Northern Queensland. While the six dioceses of New South Wales were

united under a provincial constitution, with the Bishop of Sydney as Metropolitan, no such union existed in Victoria or Queensland, and the decision of the Lambeth Conference of 1897, granting the title of Archbishop to Colonial Metropolitans applied, therefore, only to Sydney, whose Bishop thereby became Archbishop of Sydney.

Each state preserves its autonomy in church matters, but the Archbishop of Sydney is nominal head or Primate within the boundaries of Australia and Tasmania. In 1872 the ties between the churches in the various states under the jurisdiction of the Primacy were strengthened by the adoption of one common constitution. A general synod of representatives of each of these states meets in Sydney every five years to discuss Church affairs in general. New Zealand is excluded from this amalgamation, and possesses a Primacy of its own. As already stated, a Bishop of New Zealand was appointed in 1841. After various changes the constitution of the Church in New Zealand was finally settled in 1874, when the whole colony was divided into the six dioceses of Auckland, Waiapu (Napier), Wellington, Nelson, Christchurch, and Dunedin. After the departure of Bishop Selwyn, who has been the only Bishop of New Zealand, the Primacy was transferred to the see of Christchurch, where it remained until 1895. In that year the Bishop of Auckland was elected Primate of New Zealand. The missionary Bishop of Melanesia, whose head-quarters are at Norfolk Island, is under the jurisdiction of the New Zealand primacy. At present, therefore, there are twenty-three bishops in the states, including the Bishop of Melanesia, but excluding assistant bishops. The Synodical system of Church Government, by means of a legislative body, consisting of the clergy and representatives of the laity, prevails throughout Australasia, both in the individual states and as a group.

The Church of England has a larger number of adherents than any other church as well in each state as in the Commonwealth; its position is strongest in Tasmania and New South Wales, where its doctrines are professed by nearly half of the population; in Western Australia alsoit is a very powerful body, numbering 42 per cent. of the people of the state. The Church is proportionately weakest in South Australia with adherents numbering 30-26 per cent. of the total population. adherents of the Church of England in Australia numbered 644,490 in 1871, 867,791 in 1881, 1,234,121 in 1891, and 1,497,620 in 1901, an increase of 853,130 in thirty years; in New Zealand the increase has been from 107,241 in 1871 to 314,024 in 1901, or 206,783 in thirty years.

The

In 1803 a grudging recognition was extended to Roman Catholics, one of whose chaplains was for some time placed on the Government establishment; but it was not until 1820 that any regular provision was made for the due representation of the clergy of this body. Until 1834 the Roman Catholics of Australia and Tasmania were under the jurisdiction of the Bishop of Mauritius (the Rev. Dr. Ullathorne being

Vicar-General from 1830 to 1834), but in that year Sydney was constituted a see, and the Rev. John Bede Polding, D.D., was conse crated Bishop, with jurisdiction over the whole of the Continent and Tasmania. In 1842 Hobart was established as a separate diocese, and Sydney became an archiepiscopal see. The diocese of Adelaide dates from 1843, that of Perth from 1845, and those of Melbourne, Maitland, Bathurst, and Wellington from 1848. During this year a diocese was established in the Northern Territory of South Australia, which since 1888 has been designated the diocese of Port Victoria and Palmerston. The bishopric of Brisbane was founded in 1859, and that of Goulburn in 1864. In 1867 the Abbey-nullius of New Norcia (Western Australia) was established. The dioceses of Armidale and Auckland date from 1869, and those of Ballarat and Sandhurst from 1874. In 1876 Melbourne became an archdiocese, and Cooktown was formed into a Vicariate-Apostolic. Other changes took place in Queensland in 1882, when the diocese of Rockhampton was founded, and in 1884, when the Vicariate-Apostolic of British New Guinea (with residence at Thursday Island) was established. In 1885 the Archbishop of Sydney was created a cardinal, and placed at the head of the Roman Catholic Church throughout Australasia. Following upon this appointment great alterations took place in the arrangement of dioceses in 1887, when the new dioceses of Lismore, Wilcannia, Sale, Port Augusta, and Christchurch, and the Vicariates-Apostolic of Kimberley and Queensland (the latter with jurisdiction over all the aborigines of the state were established, and Adelaide, Brisbane, and Wellington became arch dioceses. In 1888 Hobart was also made an archiepiscopal see; and s new see was established in 1898 at Geraldton, in Western Australia At the present time there are six archbishops, sixteen bishops, thre vicars apostolic, and one abbot-nullius, or in all twenty-six heads of the Church with episcopal jurisdiction, irrespective of the VicariateApostolic of British New Guinea and of several auxiliary and coadjutorbishops.

The Roman Catholic Church occupies the second place in importance among the Churches of Australasia, and in each state, except South Australia, where the Methodist church is numerically stronger, and in New Zealand where its adherents are less numerous than the Presby terians. In 1871, the Roman Catholics returned at the census of the Commonwealth states numbered 408,279, in 1881, 539,558, in 1891 713,846, and in 1901, 855,800; this shows an increase of 447,521, in thirty years. In New Zealand the increase was from 35,608 to 109,822 in the same period, that is to say, of 74,214. Compared with the total population the Roman Catholic adherents were 23.1 per cent. in 1871 compared with 21-6 per cent. in 1901, thus showing a slight decrease.

Amongst the earliest free colonists who settled in the Hawkesbury district of New South Wales was a small party of Presbyterians, and one