Chapter XIII: Australian Facts and Figures

Increase of the Colonies—Further Emigration Required—New South Wales and Free-trade—The Australian Type.

STATISTICS are not pleasant reading. They are so easily twisted to serve the writer’s purpose rather than to develop the real truth of the case, but to please certain readers who are always wanting to know, I give the Australasian statistics for 1888 laid before the New South Wales Parliament, which show another year of steady progress on the part of these colonies. The total population of Australasia on December 31 last is estimated at 3,672,803, Victoria standing highest with 1,090,869; New South Wales, 1,085,740; New Zealand, 607,380; South Australia, 313,065; Queensland, 387,463; Tasmania, 146,149; Western Australia, 42,137. The total increase for the year was 126,077, the Queensland ratio of increase being 5.59; Victoria, 5.28; New South Wales, 4.10; Tasmania, 2.57; New Zealand, .66; South Australia, .21; while Western Australia showed a decrease of 351 persons, or .82 per cent. There was a total of 26,584 marriages, 122,982 births, and 48,400 deaths last year; the average birth-rate per 1,000 being 34.05, and death-rate 13.40. The number of immigrants and emigrants during the year was respectively 24,889 and 188,230, the excess of emigrants being 65,599. The Victorian net gain by immigration was 41,803; that of New South Wales, 21,545; Queensland, 11,805; whilst in South Australia there were 113 less immigrants than emigrants, Western Australia being on the same side of the balance to the extent of 1,196, and New Zealand to the extent of 9,175. Of sheep the Australian Colonies possess 96,487,811. Of these New South Wales has 48.20 per cent.; Victoria, 11.20; Queensland, 13.93; South Australia, 7.41. Horned cattle, total 9,248,949, New South Wales possessing 17.54 percent.; Victoria, 14.19; Queensland, 50.32; South Australia, 4.65. Horses amount to 1,136,683, New South Wales having 21.88 per cent.; Victoria, 21.31; Queensland, 607; South Australia, 14.95. The imports for the colonies in 1888 were: New South Wales, £20,885,557; Victoria, £23,972,134; South Australia, £5,413,638; Queensland, £6,544,324. Exports: New South Wales, £20,859,715; Victoria, £13, 853,763; South Australia, £6,984,098; Queensland, £5,226,929. Total imports and exports for the whole of the colonies, £121,859,908, or £33 15s. 2d. per head. New South Wales, Victoria, South Australia, and Western Australia exceeded this average, whilst the other colonies were considerably below it. The total tonnage entered and cleared at Australian ports amounted to 14,689,766 tons, of which New South Wales represented 4,765,419 tons; Victoria, 4,307,883 tons; South Australia, 1,973,651 tons.

In answer to the question why Australia does not attract a far larger European emigration, the reply is, the mistaken policy of the Australian Parliament. The working man in Australia is opposed to it, and M.P.’s truckle to his wishes. An Australian M.P. is paid, and he naturally wishes to retain his pay, and hence he bows to the majority, whether right or wrong. If English emigrants went to Australia, as they do to Canada or America, the Australian colonies would flourish, labour would be cheap, agriculture would prosper, and the railways would be filled with passengers whose payments would enable them to yield good dividends. Mr. Macfie, a gentleman who resided ten years in Australia, and who is a master of Australian statistics, in a paper read before the Royal Colonial Society last year, contended that the most urgently needed aid to Australian development is selecting British and European population suitable for settlement on the land, and for raising productions for which there is a large demand in the colonies, the United Kingdom, and in foreign countries. Under the present system of government, this seems to be quite out of the question. He describes, for instance, the operatives of Victoria as organized into a compact phalanx under leaders who have succeeded by dogged persistence in imbuing the colony with the notion that they constitute the party which controls the voting power at elections. ‘So widely,’ says Mr. Macfie, ‘is this assumption believed, that candidates for the Legislative Assembly, to whom a Parliamentary salary or political influence is a consideration, defer with real or affected humility to the wishes of the Trades Hall Council of Melbourne. The inevitable outcome of this state of political subjection on the part of members of the House, and in many cases of the Government also, is the injustice of class legislation. On the unjustifiable plea that the tendency of emigration is to reduce the rate of wages in the colony, the working-classes make no secret of their determination that the Government shall be prohibited from taking steps to encourage immigration of any kind, or even to diffuse information systematically, by pamphlets and lectures throughout Europe, in localities where thousands are thirsting to learn about Australia, and who would gladly proceed thither at their own cost, and engage in profitable branches of land culture.’ It is really discouraging to find that while the Argentine Confederation receives an addition to its population on an average of 7,000 a week, and the United States 10,000, Australia, with its splendid climate and other advantages, only attracts a little over 1,000 persons, old and young, male and female, per week. This state of things is mischievous in many ways. It is not pleasant to find that, as Mr. Herbert Tritton pointed out, the Australasian Government debts increase in a very much larger ratio than the population. On this head Mr. Macfie makes a rather alarming statement. ‘I have,’ he said, ‘recently been informed that a large investor in Australasian securities, deeply impressed with the necessity of investigating this subject for himself, proceeded to Australasia for the purpose of doing so. He returned to England convinced that in most of the self-governing colonies the working classes were barring the door against any effort whatsoever being made to promote immigration, extend widely agricultural settlement, and thus develop export wealth to Europe and America. He arrived at the conclusion that there was a tendency in the Local Governments and Parliaments to pander to the prejudices of those who indiscriminately discourage the introduction of even desirable immigrants. The belief was forced upon him that it is no sufficient answer to the fears of the bondholders to say that the money lent by them goes into reproductive works, such as railways. He saw railways constructed to serve an extremely sparse population in country districts, instead of a population twenty times the size, which would have rendered the line proportionately remunerative, had as much care been taken to attract people from Europe as to obtain British capital to build new lines for the limited number of settlers established in the districts through which they pass. The result of that visitor’s observation was that he sold out—I think, with unwarrantable haste—his interest in Australasian stocks on his return home. Whether his views are correct or erroneous is not the question.’

The one colony that seems to flourish most is New South Wales, under a system of Free Trade, which, however, I fear is losing its popularity every day. ‘Compared with the other colonies,’ said Sir Henry Parkes, when I was there—‘the only statesman in the colonies,’ observed a gentleman to me one day—the popular Premier of New South Wales, ‘New South Wales was the oldest, the richest and the most powerful. Ten or twelve years ago Victoria was far in advance of this colony—a quarter of a million of population in advance of us; but now we were in advance of her, and intended to keep in advance of her. In no other country in the world,’ said Sir Henry, ‘had anyone a chance of making a fortune as he had in New South Wales, and yet how melancholy is the spectacle, only peopled, as it were, on the fringe, with cities congested, while the land remained untilled; with all Europe waiting to buy if the colonies would but attract people to settle on its vacant lands and till its soil.’

Naturally you ask whether there is arising a distinct type of Australian. I think there is. The young Australian is tall, dark, has high cheek-bones and prominent teeth. Dr. MacLaurin, who lived a long time in Australia, and who is able to form a better opinion on the subject, in a paper read before the British Association, says in New South Wales and in Tasmania three generations have been exposed to the new conditions, and the greatgrandchildren of the first settlers cannot be distinguished from Englishmen, Scotchmen, or Irishmen, by anything in ‘configuration and type.’ There is no essentially _Australian_ type of man. It is true that we find a certain ‘sallowness in complexion’ among the inhabitants of the colonies, but this may be observed also among those who have been only a few years resident there. It is due, Dr. MacLaurin thinks, much more to the effects of the sun’s rays on the skin than to any _anæmia_ arising from climate. The alleged ‘lankiness’ of the Australians is also very much a myth. Dr. MacLaurin can find no trace of it, after twenty years of experience in connection with assurance society examinations. He thinks, if it exists at all, it is only during the period of youth, when growth goes on more rapidly and under healthier conditions than in Europe. ‘The fact is, the Australian youth are, as a whole, better fed, better clad, and better lodged than the inhabitants of Europe. They are not so much exposed to the inclemencies of the weather, and they are not obliged to work too hard or too early.’ Hence the tendency to a ‘tall, active, and athletic figure.’ With regard to muscular vigour, the Australian has proved himself well able to hold his own in the struggle for existence. If we think only of the great love of out-door life, of athletic sports, of racing, rowing, cricketing, and the like, manifested by all native Australians, we shall come to the conclusion that they certainly are not deficient in muscular force. Dr. MacLaurin thinks the native Australian has no need to fear comparison with the youth of the mother land. The professors in the universities and colleges assure us that Australians are quite as bright and capable as the youth in British schools of learning; and Australian young men who study in Europe are always able to take a high position in intellectual competitions. Some of them, indeed, have recently taken the very highest places. When this subject is studied from the standpoint of longevity and fertility, we find the same excellent results. It is true that the deaths among persons over sixty-five years of age are more numerous here than in England, but every decade the standard of age is increasing, and when we take the general death-rate, we find that New South Wales is decidedly healthy as compared with any part of Great Britain and Ireland. In like manner the native Australian is as able as anyone to resist disease, which is only another way of saying that his physique is thoroughly healthy and capable of great endurance.

People at home have curious ideas as to Australian distances. I was asked to see a woman employed in some charitable institution near Sydney. When I got to Sydney, on asking for that particular locality, I was told it was seventy-two miles off.

One sees a great many people who enjoy life in Australia who could not live at home. That is one great charm of a country which, as has been well remarked, would get on very well if the inhabitants would grumble less at the climate and dam the rivers more.

The whites and the blacks do not seem yet to have hit on a _modus vivendi_. It is true the savant does not do as he did in the old times, coolly shoot a black when he wanted to add a skull to his collection. But while I was in Queensland a couple of whites did fire on a black, and a black did kill a white. Under the new constitution to be granted to Western Australia, the aborigines are to be placed under the care of a Commissioner, independent of the Parliament, and responsible only to the Governor. £5,000 a year is to be devoted to the purpose, but it is not clear how a body without police organization can watch and protect the inhabitants of a thousand square miles. I quote a case which occurred to show how matters are at present. In March last the blacks near Kimberley speared the horses of a man named Howard. Whether Howard had given them just cause I am unable to say. Howard himself evidently thought they were the aggressors, as he, with the assistance of a constable, followed them, and shot some three or four. The affair came to the ears of justice, and Howard and the constable were put on their trial for murder. They were acquitted, of course, owing to the absence of direct proof that any lives were actually taken, and owing to the doubts that existed as to whether they simply fired at the blacks on coming up to them, or resorted to arms in self-defence.

The forests want looking after. In New South Wales, Victoria, New Zealand, and South Australia, the Governments are growing alive to the fact that the forests cannot last for ever. In many districts the traveller passes through hundreds of miles of ring-barked country, very desolate to look upon. It is pleasant to note that in some quarters steps have been taken to find a remedy. Especially is this the case in South Australia. Last year as many as 40,000 trees were sent out from the State nursery for planting.

The land question gives a good deal of trouble. It has, in New South Wales, much to answer for, as the great want of the farmer is water, and he will not improve his property by sinking Artesian wells, at a cost of £ 1,000 each, unless he has a better title. On the other hand, it is held that Victorian prosperity is chiefly due to its liberal land laws. In New South Wales the farmer is given 2,500 acres with no cultivation conditions. He can hold it as he gets it till his time is up, and transfer it to the squatter, and then go and re-select as long and as often as he likes, with this result, that there is no real settlement in the land—no progress, and no employment for the agricultural labourer.