habits of extravagance which too often end in distress and ruin. The elaborate and expensive ceremonials which are deemed necessary for a proper and efficient representation of the Queen by a Colonial Governor, I am bound to say, have a most injurious effect upon the vainglorious class, who are thus tempted, in ignorance of the consequences, to import into a new country, and among a socially unsophisticated people, the paraphernalia of an old country which has been ruled by monarchical pageant and aristocratic luxury for many centuries. The occupant of Government House in an Australian colony is not to blame in this matter, so much as the unwholesome régime which has from the first been forced on functionaries of his class, and which the pomp-loving section of Colonists now insist should be upheld, to the moral and social detriment of the community.

Another social drawback, which is partly of an economic character, is the needless severe restrictions placed by Australasian governments upon the introduction of immigrants from China, India, and Japan. The root of this exclusiveness is not difficult to trace. The mass of the working-classes have a declared aversion to the immigration of men of their own ranks from England and foreign nationalities, who are accustomed to receive lower wages than are paid for an equal kind of work in Australasia. Even trades unionists from the parent country have to endure, as a rule, from the workpeople previously established in the colonies, a long probation, during which they are treated with comparative coldness and suspicion. But their treatment of the yellow races, as might be expected, is much more inhospitable; although in this respect they are probably no worse than the working-classes of the United States and Canada. But impartial observers are of opinion that this prejudice against the Chinese, Japanese, and

Indians, is carried to a fanatical extent. The yellow races have never shown a tendency to come into Australasia in such unreasonable numbers as to create any well-founded dread of competition in the labour market. But for the Chinese it would have been impossible for the inhabitants of large towns to obtain an adequate supply of vegetables at a moderate price. They have always been the chief market gardeners of Australasia, and they have, with very few exceptions, been content to be "hewers of wood and drawers of water." Nor do the Japanese or the Indians desire to be obtrusive, or to come over in menacing hordes. Their mission is peace, and it will be time enough to stop them when they tend to become numerous. It may be remarked, however, that the eastern peoples cannot be excluded with impunity any more than the Kanakas of the South Seas could be, from the sugar plantations of Queensland. After repeated attempts of the parliament and people of that colony to exclude them, the colonists were at length driven to the conviction that without Kanaka help their sugar estates would perish from insufficient labour, and this force majure ultimately prevailed, Kanakas being admitted under legal regulations. It will likewise be found that the white labourer is unable to work under the tropical heat of the northern latitudes of Australia, and that if Chinamen, Japanese, and Indians are not imported, the development of those regions will be irremediably checked. But the yellow races will in time have their revenge for present interference with their liberty to live and trade, in a way which the most rigid form of protection cannot always prevent. Cotton and woollen mills are already springing up at a very rapid rate, in India, Japan, and China, and after the textile wants of these countries are supplied, a large export trade in cotton and woollen goods from them will be developed, not only to the

growing populations in the Southern Hemisphere, but also to the great nations of the West in the Northern Hemisphere. The low cost of Oriental labour will enable merchants in Australasia to import the commodities referred to, and others, so cheaply that they will be able to pay heavy protective duties and still undersell the manufactured products both of the Colonies and Europe.

A grave and practical question, in conclusion, is irresistibly suggested by the whole subject. Is the system of British territorial expansion abroad so framed as to be made as subservient as it is capable of being, to the material welfare of the vast and increasing surplus population of the United Kingdom? Political reformers at home have long been agitating for a "redistribution of parliamentary seats." But if the inhabitants of these islands continue to increase at the present annual ratio, a still more urgent problem must ere long press for solution. How is the large and growing unemployed balance to be disposed of? Already the density of population to area is greater in England than in any European country, except Belgium, and we have a larger proportion overwhelmed in abject poverty than exists in any other European country. The additions to our home population are roughly estimated at 1000 per day, or about 350,000 per annum. Of this total increase about 200,000 leave the country, in each year, chiefly for the United States and the British possessions abroad, 150,000 per annum remaining behind to be dealt with. If this large surplus is left unprovided for, it must increase in arithmetical progression, and if the manufacturing competition of Germany, Belgium, and other countries continue to make advancing inroads, as seems not improbable, upon our industrial supremacy, especially in relation to foreign markets, we must inevitably be saddled with a startling increase of British pauperism. There are already between

800,000 and 1,000,000 paupers on the official records in England and Wales, and this large total represents a very much larger number perpetually hovering on the boundary line of starvation. We are consequently justified in believing that General Booth's estimate of a tenth of the thirty-nine and a half millions inhabiting these islands being actually " submerged," or hopelessly beaten in the struggle for existence under arduous, economic, and social conditions, is well within the mark; and there are factors in operation making it certain that, in the absence of effective alleviating agencies, this immense proportion of helpless and miserable victims of our civilisation will civilisation will greatly increase. In London alone there are about 100,000 in the regular receipt of parish relief, and this shows some thousands more reduced to destitution in the Metropolis than were to be met with three years ago. British agriculture appears to be fast declining under foreign and colonial competition. The result is that farm labourers-to say nothing of former well-to-do farm tenants are driven into the towns to swell an

already congested population. According to Mr Charles Booth, 14,596,352 persons live in houses under a 10 rental, and 22,211,919-or considerably more than half the population of the United Kingdom-live in houses under a £20 rental, while an enormous number of families are huddled together in slums, living and sleeping promiscuously in two rooms, and often in only one. These outward and visible signs of wretchedness cannot fail to multiply to an appalling extent, as the decline in the cotton manufacture of Lancashire and in the woollen manufacture of Yorkshire, progresses under foreign competition. Formerly we feared as rivals, in iron and textile products, the Germans, Austrians, and Belgians. But, apart from the United States, which are making their presence increasingly

felt in foreign markets to our detriment, we are face to face with a nation which threatens ultimately to be a more formidable competitor than any of these. I refer to Japan, whose unlimited command of industrial skill and cheap labour for many years to come will confer upon her her an incalculable advantage over western nations. The time is approaching, too, when China, in like manner, will have to be reckoned with as, perhaps, the most powerful rival of all in the industrial branches which have been named, as well as in others. It is not long since Sir T. Sutherland, M.P. for Greenock, said that if the trades unions of this country should continue to press their demands for higher and higher wages, to the injury of the shipbuilding interest, such companies as his own would be compelled to have their vessels built on the Yangtse instead of the Clyde and the Tyne.

Here is an outlook which may well engage the attention of able and earnest statesmen, involving political and social problems, bearing an infinitely more vital relation to the wellbeing of this country than most of those which usually occupy Parliament. If war is undertaken against a foreign enemy, the most elaborate organisation is devoted to putting the two great branches of our fighting service in a state of efficiency, and scores of millions sterling are promptly voted for the purpose. But if an oppressive incubus of misery is to be removed from the country by a judicious redistribution of the population from the centre of the empire, where they are unable to earn adequate supplies of food and raiment, to the Colonies, where able and willing hands can earn both, it seems to be the business of nobody in particular, and it is postponed sine die by the people's representatives. I grant that the transplanting of our dependent unemployed classes to outlying sections of the Empire is surrounded by difficulties of no ordinary character.