170 PRESIDENT’S ADDRESS—SECTION H. 
in inter-censual years. Yet here in Australia, in a new country, 
where the population is annually recruited by immigration, where, 
to speak of one province alone, I have during the past few years 
seen in one case about seven thousand, and in the other about 
fifteen thousand, persons accumulate within two or three years 
upon previously uninhabited areas, and where similar displace- 
ments of population are common ; where in the eleven years, 1876 
to 1886, the excess of arrivals over departures was more than 
528,000, or more than one-sixth of the total population in the 
latter year. Under these circumstances we adhere to the 
decennial census, and strive to supply its defects in intervening 
years by calculation. It is plain that this course must often 
lead to serious error; and in point of fact it was found at the 
census of 1881 that the enumerated population fell short of 
the estimated population by more than 67,000 in Victoria, 
and by nearly 30,000 in New South Wales, upon enumerated 
totals of 862,346 and 751,468 respectively.* The death-rates 
published in these provinces for 1881 (and _ proportionately 
in former years) must have been considerably below the 
truth, since they were calculated upon these exaggerated 
estimates ; and in certain cities or localities they must have been 
still more erroneous—here by excess, there by defect. False 
impressions of the state of the public health must have been 
given for that if for no other reasons. 
But there are other reasons, and most important ones. We 
have adopted the laws and organisation which, good or bad, were 
devised to suit an old country. They are especially unsuited to 
our circumstances. We inhabit a favoured land. If a com- 
paratively small and scarcely inhabited area be excepted, there is 
no malaria in Australia; and it is precisely the absence or 
presence of malaria which distinguishes a healthy from an 
unhealthy climate. he carnivora which in some other partly 
occupied countries levy a heavy tax upon mankind and hinder 
settlement are entirely wanting, while the reptiles, if they are 
not for the most part harmless, are at all events of but small 
practical consequence. And then the country, although conti- 
nental in size, is separated from the rest of the world by wide 
seas ; it presents great variety of climate, but extreme cold in no 
part ; and it is so fertile that, while production has long been in 
excess of local needs, the natural limit to increase is clearly 
almost infinitely removed. Nor are special conditions less favour- 
able to life. Ample food, varied and nutritious, is easily within 
the reach of all; the terms of labour are uniformly reasonable ; 
occupations and amusements are chiefly out-door ; the specitic 
population is everywhere low, if some comparatively small areas 
of the larger cities be excepted; and the general population is 
youthtul. 
* * Wealth and Progress of New South Wales, 188-9." Mr. T. A. Coghlan, Government 
Statistician. 
