from the markets and population centers of the Old World, but it was further favored by the method of early settlement and the system of land administration then adopted. The country was so distant from European markets as to forbid until recently the profitable export of agricultural produce. The local demand was limited. There was no tide of foreign immigration flowing in, with a large percentage of land-hungry peasants, creating diversified industries and ultimately a large body of home consumers. For a half century the government was almost autocratic, and the chief industries were carried on largely by convict labor. This favored extensive land grants and a baronial estate system, as distinguished from the system of small holdings that has characterized early settlement in the United States and Canada. Surveys were not undertaken upon a systematic basis, and did not precede settlement. Beyond the occupied country was a no man's land, into which adventurous pastoralists pushed forward, occupying the area of a small kingdom with their flocks. Hence the local term for a large landholder in Australia to-day is a "squatter," a word that carries with it quite the opposite significance from that familiar to Americans. Some of these lands are actually unsuited for agricultural purposes, but whole districts of valuable crop country, only waiting the touch of the plow to yield bountiful harvests, remained untilled. When the State attempted to resume its rights over these tracts, there was naturally bitter opposition from the temporary holders. The latter were seldom dispossessed, the government contenting itself with exacting a small rent upon the acreage occupied. Under the constant pressure of private interests much passed into actual freehold. For years the holders of large pastoral estates belonging to the public, which were later turned into fertile farms, stoutly maintained that the ground wouldn't grow a cabbage. Recourse was had to legislation. The land laws of Australia and their amendments fill ponderous volumes, hardly of interest now even to the most conscientious historian of tenures and agrarian policies, for they illustrate no general principles, but only record pullings and haulings in the squabble to acquire and maintain rights in land by private parties, or to defend or assert similar rights on the part of the public. It is no mere accident that Australia developed out of these conditions the Torrens title system, one of the securest and simplest methods of land transfer in the world. The land was valuable and was occupied in this more or less haphazard manner, however, because grazing was profitable, and because it was virtually the only avenue of investment and employment in Australia during the first half century of the colony's existence. Wool could be shipped to England profitably, even in the old days when the sailing voyage around the Cape occupied as many months as it now does weeks. In the mild Australian climate stock does not need hous The States just mentioned and Tasmania are old settled country, in an American sense, as old as Ohio and the Mississippi Valley, but the total impression, from a car window, received riding through them, is of a land still in the pioneer stage of development. A visitor finds himself constantly thinking, "What opportunities! What a change ten years will make in this country!" and then suddenly recalls the fact that back in the days of the Black Hawk war, in the times of the "Forty-niners," there was a generation of colonists in the prime of life that had been born in Australia. The novel juxtaposition of old settled social and political traditions with frontier conditions and undeveloped resources first impresses an American. As an Indiana business man said: "It is a country that has grown only in spots." The relative predominance of pastoral over agricultural industries accounts in part for the apparently primitive state of rural development. The remarkable concentration of the population in urban centers is an attendant circumstance which helps to explain this as well as many other features of Australian life. A statistical expression of the last fact is found in the following table: AREA AND POPULATION OF AUSTRALIAN STATES AND PER CENT OF TOTAL POPULATION IN CAPITAL CITIES AND IN CITIES OF OVER 8,000 INHABITANTS, 1901. Cities of over 8,000 population. Popula- Per cent tion. of total New South Wales. Queensland South Australia Tasmania. Victoria.. Western Australia These figures evidently imply the exploitation of a land of g natural resources by a comparativel tribute of the sources of This tu ural cau ing, forage does not have to be cut; one could set himself up in business with land and animals alone. Grazing was the natural pioneer industry of the country. With the gold discovery and mineral development of the middle of the last century a new element was introduced into the population and into the industrial life of Australia, but one that reacted only slowly upon agriculture. In fact during the first excitement labor was drawn away from instead of to farm occupations. By the time the country population had awakened to the profit of the new market in the gold fields the tide of miners was already ebbing in some localities. New transportation routes had to be created. Food supplies in many instances could be imported into the mining centers from abroad more cheaply than they could be brought from centers of home production. But an incentive was given to railway building, and from this time dates the real development of the country. The labor market was overstocked, especially in Victoria, when the mining excitement was over. As a consequence a system of protected manufacturing industries sprang up in that colony, accompanied finally by such redundant prosperity that business was overstimulated, and the period culminated in a land boom that collapsed in the early nineties. Meantime recent gold discoveries in Western Australia created a new and speculative interest in that country. Population was drawn away from the older colonies, and after a sluggish existence of more than half a century— during which period this section, the largest in area of the Australian States, had acquired a population of less than 50,000-the western colony became the Mecca of all the floating population of the continent. In the decade ending in 1901 the number of inhabitants increased nearly threefold, although the population of the other five States of the present Commonwealth increased less than 2 per cent in the same period. All these apparently abnormal fluctuations in population and industrial concentration-this sort of chills-and-fever state of society-derive from the same causes that express themselves in the predominance of urban life and industry over the living and callings of the country. They form the shifting scenery and setting of labor conditions, and explain the relative prominence of the labor movement in social and political life. The wage-earner, the mobile and unattached member of society, predominates among the producing population. The conservatism, the petty economies, the centering of life in small but certain individual acquisition of property that characterize a farming community, do not exist in Australia to the same extent as elsewhere. Nor does this frugal and hard-fisted life contribute so largely to the recruits of urban labor. This would appear the fundamental fact to be observed in taking a first-glance survey of labor conditions in that country. Grazing is the most important single industry in Australia. Wool alone forms one-fourth the total exports, its value on normal years being between $80,000,000 and $90,000,000. Live stock, frozen and preserved meats, hides and leather, and dairy products, constitute a second large fraction of the exports, to the value of about $50,000,000 per annum, and the aggregate mineral output of Australia's mines totals over $100,000,000 yearly. All the other exports of the Commonwealth, including some reexports of manufactured articles, are valued rather under $100,000,000, of which wheat, to the value of some $15,000,000, constitutes the principal single item. () Grazing is largely an employing industry in Australia, and even agriculture is conducted by more wholesale methods than in the United States. Taking Victoria as the State that has reached the highest degree of agricultural development in proportion to its area, in March, 1902, there were 41,153 cultivated holdings, with a total crop area of 3,810,413 acres, or an average of 92.6 acres of tilled land for each farm. The total area of the State, however, is 56,245,760 acres. Only 6.77 per cent of the land, therefore, is under tillage. Considered in relation to population instead of area, South Australia leads in agricultural industry. Upon the date given above the land under private ownership in that State aggregated 8,087,776 acres, and that held under lease from the government 24,910,830 acres, while the total territorial area of the State is about 578,361,000 acres. Of these 32,998,606 acres of occupied land, 3,122,800 were under cultivation, or 8.6 acres for every person in the State. In the entire Commonwealth the average area cultivated for each inhabitant is 2.2 acres. Hay and wheat together constitute nearly one-half of the produce raised. Queensland has developed a cane-sugar industry of considerable local importance. Manufactures are confined mostly to those required to supply local demands, though before Victoria became a member of the Federation, and while she still retained her independent tariff system, her manufactured products were distributed throughout Australasia. Under the Federal tariff home manufactures find their market in the entire Commonwealth, and there is some export, especially of boots and shoes, to New Zealand. Melbourne remains the manufacturing center of the country. Land transportation is conducted by railways owned by the governments of the respective States, the private lines being few in number and of little importance as highways of commerce. The coasting trade is largely controlled by local shipping, and regular lines of homeowned steamers ply between the principal ports. The export trade, however, is in the hands of British and foreign vessels. As Melbourne is relatively prominent in manufacturing, so has Sydney a Approximate figures only are given, as on account of the recent drought, current export statistics are not fairly representative. 12425 No. 56-05-2 |