PROCEEDINGS OF SECTION F. 375 



occasion like this, a witness who was dumb on an integral part of 

 his subject would be adjudged as "mute of malice"; his silence 

 wx)uld be treason against science, the Commonwealth, and the 

 human species. 



The other class of people I have mentioned, professional men, 

 commercial m.en, politicians, hygienists, arm.y men, especially 

 Americans, had other questions v/hich they wished answered. A 

 large statistical table in the Healtli Exhibition, at Washington, 

 showed an Australian State at the bottom of the list in infant 

 mortality, and the people wished to know the reason or reasons. 

 We discussed the care of State children, begun here before their 

 birth, Children's Courts, the relative advantages of the systems of 

 boarding-out and of orphan institutions, the legislation on 

 children's rights and occupations, the value of representative 

 councils of men and women as an aid to State Departments in all 

 administration in which social and moral questions are involved, 

 our compulsory military system, what it is and how it promises 

 to work, inebriates legislation, old-age and invalid pensions, 

 Women's Property Acts, women's labour, women suffragists and 

 their influence, eight hours and early closing legislation, tropical 

 conditions and white labour. Food and Drugs Acts in the medical 

 and commercial aspects, health administration. Wages Boards and 

 industrial legislation generally. Conciliation and Arbitration 

 Courts, Workmen's Compensation Acts, and such like ; and the 

 Americans wondered at the confidence we expressed in the keystone 

 of the whole — the integrity of our Law Courts and legal institu- 

 tions. Their questions and conversation on these subjects showed 

 the living interest they took in race problems, immigration (the 

 annual immigration to New York City exceeds the birth rate), 

 matters that influence race-culture, and our social experiments and 

 experience in matters that affect the life-blood of the American 

 people. Their chief ground of complaint was thai we did not let 

 more be known in the outside world about our infant Comm.on- 

 wealth, that we don't advertise ourselves. 



These matters in themselves, and the attitude of the American 

 people towards them, made me think that the time may have now 

 come when it might be useful for us Australians to examine 

 Australian conditions and problems from the stand-point of present 

 Anthropological knowledge; and to this task I would now turn. 



As a text, and to begin with, I would quote an American 

 writer who undertook a mission to Australia, and wrote critically 

 and sympathetically on our institutions. He says — " Australia is 

 peopled by an almost pure British stock. Three-fourths of the 

 inhabitants were born in the Colonies, and four-fifths of the 

 remainder are natives of the British Islands. This homogeneity 

 of population has some pleasant and desirable results. National 



