tences.

The emancipists, however rich and educated, were debarred from many civil privileges, but eventually secured their social equality. Responsible government, granted in 1850, was a revolution in the state of affairs, though well guarded by the "nominee" system of the Upper House. With progressive extension of the suffrage, workers secured their better position.

Under the Parliamentary régime the landed or pastoral men sought to retain their former privileges, while the landless demanded the breaking-up of squatting domains, for the formation of small farms, on easy terms of purchase. The Tariff question also divided parties. The mercantile and squatting classes favoured Free Trade, but the working-classes fancied their interests lay in Protection. The numbers of the latter carried the day in all the colonies. Intent on improvements or changes, the Parliament, though having a large income from new taxes and duties, with the sales of land, ventured upon loans, which people here were solicitous to provide.

For many years revenue was in excess of expenditure. Public works gave abundant employment, with high wages, while capitalists increased their stores. Speculative booms brought difficulties, and an arrest of loans, bearing heavy charges, have brought on a temporary monetary collapse. But the railways made by the loans, with other improvements, remain, and the coming tide of prosperity will soon restore the balance of affairs. So energetic and intelligent a community, in a land of such resources, cannot fail to recover a healthy condition.

The customs, excise, and stamps afford sources of income. The duties and land leases swell that amount. The total revenue for 1897 was £9,107,208; the expenditure, £9,140,350. But the public debt was lately over £60,000,000. Of this, the railways alone cost over £40,000,000, yet now pay at fair interest.

Depositors have nearly nine millions in the SavingsBank, but forty millions of money in all banks. The exports are far in excess of imports. The Government railways, nearly 2800 miles long, are opening up the country. The Government tramways in Sydney, &c., are 65 miles in length. The telegraph wires extend 32,000 miles. Good roads, harbours, and other public works were in great part aided by the loans. The debt, unlike the debt of other nations, has been incurred to develop the country, and provide work for labour, wholly in the interests of peace.

EDUCATION, in its broad sense, receives distinguished attention from Government, as in all the colonies. Formerly, State aid was only afforded to schools under the clergy of the Church of England, though afterwards extended to those of other denominations, and to some unsectarian ones. Ultimately, a general school system was established, open to all, compulsory and unsectarian. Of such schools there are now 2700. But many Roman Catholic schools, and some few of Protestants, are independent of State aid, from an opinion that dogma must be united with ordinary learning. The State has scholarships for girls and boys, to enable them to rise to Government highschools, while bursaries facilitate the entrance of both to university instruction. Private schools exist to the number of 900. All pupils travel free to school on Government railways and tramways.

State aid is also given to evening public schools, to technical schools, to a school of mines, and a school of medicine, in addition to the Sydney university. There are affiliated to the university, colleges of the three leading denominations, as well as the nonsectarian, besides the woman's college. The liberality of Government sustains not only these institutions, but provides a technical museum for technical schools, a national art gallery, an extensive public library, and

the splendid Australian museum. The colony is justly proud of its schools of learning.

The PRESS has had an eventful history. The first Australian paper was the Sydney Gazette. A couple of foolscap pages were sufficient for a number of years, and the printer was often tried for want of decent paper, stuff used for sugar parcels having repeatedly to do service. Every article or advertisement had to pass the censor of the press. Governor Darling introduced the English Press-Gagging Act, and subjected newspaper conductors to rough treatment. But, thanks to the colonial Chief-Justice, the English Fourpenny Stamp Act was successfully resisted. Security was, however, demanded in two recognisances of £300 from newspaper proprietors. Heavy fines and imprisonment were often the lot of printers and editors. As other papers entered on the stage, the struggle grew more bitter; but, though many suffered, the freedom of the press was at length secured, and before English writers themselves were freed. All honour to the men of New South Wales that fought and conquered. Almost every petty township has now its newspaper. The press in Sydney has a world-wide reputation.

Let it never be forgotten that the evolution of freedom, and the progress of humanity, have received their noblest illustrations in the history of New South Wales.

VICTORIA

BY E. JEROME DYER, F.R.G.S.

(Secretary of the London Chamber of Mines)

As far away from contentious Europe as a wise Providence could place a land of promise lies the world's fifth continent-Australia. Mysterious in the vast solitudes of its unknown interior, and fascinating in the boundless natural riches which daily discoveries prove to exist in amazing profusion throughout the entire land wherever man has set his foot, this island continent has an auspicious destiny, that accident might happen to delay but which nothing can intervene to destroy.

In a country so huge, though so favoured by nature, one must expect to find at least a few drawbacks—without which, indeed, nothing exists in this world-standing out the more prominently by contrast with so much that is superior; and it is so, though, happily, the country is peculiarly free from so many of those unhappy visitations and natural afflictions which the rest of the world labours under. The worst and perhaps the only serious defect which disfigures this fair land, and which is quite as bad as it is conspicuous, is the insufficiency of water. This is occasioned by irregularity of rainfall and the sparsity of permanent streams. This misfortune is not so much a feature of the south as of the territories of the north, where on occasions of drought the hot winds of the tropics parch the vegetation and

bring with them many of those evils peculiar to tropical countries.

In the more mountainous south or south-east, however, a different state of things prevails. In those latitudes, where the winds and seas of the tropics commingle with those of the frigid south, lies Australia's "farm-garden "the colony of Victoria. Luxuriating in this climatic blend, its extremes of heat and cold are very brief and never excessive. Stock thrive in the fields without shelter throughout the winter, and winter clothing may be worn with but little inconvenience throughout the summer. No country in the world can show better returns per acre without artificial aid to the soil, in the majority of those industries largely dependent upon a benign sun and mellow climate, than this colony. And it is in this direction-in pastoral pursuits and in the industries of viticulture, horticulture, and dairying-that this colony and indeed the whole of Australia are finding their destiny. I have purposely excepted one of the most important of Victoria's industries, viz. gold-mining. I do so as I am of opinion that, valuable as this industry is to the development of a country, especially in the case of this colony, it cannot rank with agriculture as an abiding pillar of a nation's permanent prosperity. In Victoria's case mining is merely incidental to the perpetuity of its industries of the soil.

Another industry that does not justify the weight attached to it in Victoria is that of manufacturing. In fact all the colonies might be included in this connection. Australia can never become a manufacturing country in the sense which identifies England, Germany, and the United States, for instance, with this great industry. There are many reasons for this, chiefly affecting the present obstacles in the path, such as the scanty population, the attraction of more payable industries and the absence or scarcity of payable iron