nalists in the colonies. Every newspaper of standing has one lady or more on its staff or among its contributors. Many of these also correspond with intercolonial, American, and English periodicals, and all are doing widely varied and, I may safely say, arduous journalistic work.

Of the greater novelists of the day Tasmania has the honour of claiming Mrs. Humphrey Ward, whose fame as an author has become wide as the speech of the English tongue. This talented and earnest-minded lady was born in Hobart, and her mother, Mrs. Arnold, whose maiden name was Sorrell, was also a native of the island-colony, and a very clever and beautiful woman. Port Sorrell bears her family name.

Among Australian novelists who have attained an extensive reputation in England as well as at the Antipodes is Mrs. Campbell-Praed, whose voluminous and clever writings exhibit an undeniable talent for character analysis, combined with considerable power in the presentment of intense dramatic situation. Mrs. Praed, the daughter of a Queensland squatter and politician, was born on the Logan River, near Brisbane. It was not till after she married and came to live in London that she began to write; but she tells me that it was her early years of life in Australia that made her a writer. The lonely outdoor life, the strange noises of the bush, the weirdness and mystery of the scenery, the romance and wildness of her native land, entered into her youthful heart and imagination, coloured the whole tone of her thoughts, and are reproduced largely in her writings. Her first novel, “ An Australian Heroine," appeared in 1880. In her "Romance of a Station" she found materials in her experiences whilst living in an island off the north coast of Queensland, and the first few chapters are absolute fact. Her descriptions are always from notes taken on the spot. She believes in Flaubert's method:

if you want to sketch a tree, go and stand in front of that tree, and look at it until you see something in it that nobody ever saw before. Mrs. Campbell-Praed has written in collaboration with one of England's eminent authors, Mr. Justin M'Carthy, their first productions being "The Right Honourable" and "The Ladies' Gallery," the latter being dramatised by Mrs. Praed and interpreted on the stage by Mr. and Mrs. Kendal.

Madame Couvreur, who writes under the name of "Tasma," is another colonial fiction writer who has gained a high place in literary circles. She, like Mrs. Humphrey Ward, is a native of Tasmania. Her" Uncle Piper of Pipers' Hill" made her famous in a week. An English man of letters declares it to be "one of the greatest efforts in the whole field of literature," and everything that has come from her pen since has amply justified the praises of her first critic and the verdict of the public.'

Mrs. Mannington Caffyn ("Iota"), though not a native of Australia, resided there for several years, and it was in Victoria that her first book, "The Yellow Aster," was written. This novel was written three years before it was published, during a summer sojourn at the seaside, and in the country near Melbourne. So little did the writer think of her production, that the manuscript was thrown away into an outhouse, and there served for a long time as a cat's bed, occupied by the household tabby. It was only at the urgent pressure of her husband, who had read the MS. and was sure there was "something in it," that the author was at last induced to rescue it from the oblivion to which it had been relegated, get it type-written, and send it to a publisher. It at once became a phenomenal success, and was classed among the "New Woman" books of the day-a title, by the way, which Mrs. Caffyn totally and emphatically repudiates for her

This lady is deceased since this lecture was delivered.

work. This author's later books have fully sustained her reputation, and one of her latest," A Comedy in Spasms," is largely coloured by her Australian experiences.

Mrs. G. F. Cross ("Ada Cambridge "), whose stories have been widely read in Australia, and whose volumes I see on the shelves of the London public libraries, is the wife of a Victorian clergyman, whose work has been nearly all done in the colony where her husband's work lies. "A. C.'s" first Australian novel, "Up the Murray," was published in serial form in 1875. Since then many books have come from her pen, some dozen or more of which have been published in London. Her productions are marked by much literary talent and considerable independence of opinion. Her poem "Unspoken Thoughts" is considered by competent critics to stand in the front ranks of modern poetry.

Of younger writers coming to the front may be classed Miss Mary Gaunt, with her vigorous tales of bush life, and Miss Ethel Turner, author of "Seven Little Australians" and other stories.

Among Australasian verse writers, Miss Jennings Carmichael ranks high. Her poems were last year given to the English public in book form. Miss Carmichael, like Mrs. Campbell-Praed, found in the solemn Australian bush her first inspiration to write. It was in the far wilds of the Gippsland ranges in Victoria that, taking long, lonely walks, with paper and pencil as her only companions in the silence and stillness of the sombre forests, most of her early poems were composed. For pathos, simple and unfeigned, Miss Jennings Carmichael is said to have no rival in Antipodean literature.

There are many sweet versifiers, both of Australia and New Zealand, which the limits of time compel me to omit naming.

Mr. Douglas Sladen, the editor of "Australian Ballads," in his introduction to the volume, states that

"Nearly all Antipodean poetesses are native-born. Most of them exhibit the influence of Adelaide Procter strongly, and that one of them, Agnes Neale' (Mrs. Ahean, of Adelaide), may fairly be called the Australian Adelaide Procter."

As an example of the patriotism, pride of country, and belief in a great future for their native land which glows in the heart of Australian-born women, I will quote the last lines of a poem on "Australia," by the last-named writer:-

"Lo! a young world, lo! a strong world, rises in this distant clime, Destined to increase and strengthen to the very end of time. Here through veins with young life swelling, rolls the blood that rules the world;

Here as hers, and dear as honour, England's banner floats
unfurled.

Oh, Australia! fair and lovely, empress of the southern sea,
What a glorious fame awaits thee in the future's history!
Land of wealth and land of beauty, tropic suns and arctic snows,
Where the splendid noontide blazes, where the raging storm-
wind blows;

Be thou proud, and be thou daring, ever true to God and man ;
In all evil be to rearward, in all good take thou the van!
Only let thy hands be stainless, let thy life be pure and true,
And a destiny awaits thee such as nations never knew!"

Enough has been said, I hope, to prove that literary and artistic talents are being surely, and neither unworthily nor tardily, developed in the women of Australasia; also to make manifest, notwithstanding their minority as to numbers, that women take a leading part in the drama of life on the stage of the great southern world—that their position is a worthy as well as a prominent one.

It is well that it should be so, and presages favourably for the years to come, for truly on the physical, mental, and moral tone of its women depend in grave measure the future history and national character of the Australasian people.

BRITISH NEW GUINEA

By T. H. HATTON RICHARDS, F.R.G.S.

Late Treasurer of the Possession

NEW GUINEA is generally described as the largest island in the world after Australia. It was discovered in 1511 by Antonio de Abrea, while the Archipelago to the south-east was discovered by the French towards the end of the eighteenth century.

That portion which is known as British New Guinea was annexed as the result of continued representations on the part of Australian statesmen. In the rivalry, however, that existed for supremacy in that great island, the Dutch claimed the whole of that portion lying to the west of the 141st degree of E. longitude. Germany also wished to have a portion of the island. The feeling in Australia was very keen, and this can be very readily understood when one realises the close proximity of so large an island to so important a country as Australia. The earnestness of Queensland was manifested by the Government of that colony sending an officer to New Guinea to annex the country; and accordingly, on the 4th April 1883, Mr. Chester, then police magistrate of Thursday Island, hoisted the British flag at Port Moresby. This act, however, was not upheld by the Imperial Govern

ment.

Still the colonies pressed their opinion, and at the Inter-Colonial Conference held in Sydney of the same. year, resolutions were passed urging the annexation by Great Britain of, at any rate, some portion of the