AUSTRALASIA. 



AUSTRIA-HUNGARY. 



49 



territory was intended to receive the overflowing 

 population of India, although that kind of im- 

 migration is deemed undesirable by the Austra- 

 lians, and would probably never be suffered after 

 federation is once achieved. The select commit- 

 tee of the House of Commons, to which the bill 

 was referred, pronounced against establishing a 

 Crown colony in the north, or reserving to the Im- 

 perial Government power to regulate the disposal 

 of waste lands north of latitude 20. At present 

 there is a population of 3,000 persons in the 

 whole region, who are not settled, as they follow 

 mining or pastoral pursuits, for which alone the 

 land is adapted, owing to the heat and deficient 

 rainfall. These residents prefer that the land 

 regulations should be vested in the imperial 

 authorities. There is much land available for 

 agriculture in the southwest. About 3,000,000 

 acres have been transferred, and 4.000,000 acres 

 more are about to be transferred to land com- 

 panies. Coal has been discovered in large de- 

 posits at several points, none of it being bitu- 

 minous. Western Australia is provided with a 

 railroad, 300 miles long, from Albany, on King 

 George's Sound, to York, Perth, and Fremantle. 

 Other railroads already built made the total mile- 

 age 442 in 1889. A new line, partly constructed 

 in 1890, is 295 miles in length. It leads to gold 

 fields discovered near Norcia and to Strawberry 

 Hill, where there are coal, lead, and copper, pass- 

 ing through a country very salubrious and capa- 

 ble of producing cereals and fruits of the tem- 

 perate and tropical zones. There were 2,970 

 miles of telegraph. The Western Australian gold 

 fields, of which there are five or six in various 

 parts of the colony, have made slow headway, but 

 it is only recently that machinery has begun 

 working on the quartz ledges. A promising tin 

 field has been discovered in the southern district. 

 It is expected that when responsible government 

 is established immigrants will flock to the colony, 

 and that there will be such rapid strides of mate- 

 rial development as took place in Queensland. 



Tasmania. Sir Robert G. C. Hamilton has 

 been Governor since January, 1887. The f ol lo wi ng 

 were the responsible ministers in 1890 : Premier 

 and Chief Secretary, Philip Oakley Fish ; Treas- 

 urer, Bolton Stafford Bird ; Attorney-General, 

 Andrew Inglis Clark ; Minister of Lands and 

 Works, Alfred Pillinger. The Treasurer antici- 

 pated a surplus of 30,000 in 1889-'90, and one 

 of half that amount in the succeeding year. Like 

 ail the colonies, Tasmania is still extending her 

 railroads. Lines 114 miles in length were in 

 process of construction in 1889. 



New Zealand. The Earl of Onslow was ap- 

 pointed Governor in November, 1888. At the 

 beginning of 1890 the following ministers com- 

 posed the Administration : Premier, Colonial 

 Treasurer, Postmaster-General, Minister of Ma- 

 rine, Commissioner of Stamps, and Commission- 

 er of Trade and Customs, Sir H. A. Atkinson; 

 Attorney-General, Sir Frederick Whitaker ; Min- 

 ister of 'Native Affairs and Telegraph Commis- 

 sioner, E. Mitchelson ; Colonial Secretary, Minis- 

 ter of Justice, and Minister of Defense, W. R. 

 Russell ; Minister of Lands, Agriculture, and Im- 

 migration. G. F. Richardson ; Minister of Public 

 Works and Mines, T. Fergus ; Minister of Edu- 

 cation, T. W. Hislop ; without portfolio. E. C. 

 J. Stevens. The revenue returns for 1890 show 

 VOL. xxx. 4 A 



an improvement on those of the previous vear 

 of 200,000, the total receipts being 4,200,000. 

 The increase was due to railways and customs, 

 while the revenue from the property tax fell off. 

 There was a surplus of receipts over expenditures 

 amounting to 110,000. A successful Interna- 

 tional Exhibition was held in 1890 at Dunedin. 



Fiji. The Governor of Fiji and High Com- 

 missioner for the Western Pacific is Sir John 

 Bates Thurston. In two of the sixteen prov- 

 inces the administration is conducted by Euro- 

 pean commissioners, while in the others native 

 chiefs, under the title of Roko Tui, govern in ac- 

 cordance with the laws and customs in force 

 prior to the British annexation of the islands 

 in 1874. The education of the native Fijians is 

 conducted by the Wesleyan missionaries, who 

 taught 41,077 children in 1888, and by the Ro- 

 man Catholic mission, which had 1,040 pupils in 

 1885. The European settlers have begun the 

 cultivation of tea, coffee, and cotton. The export 

 of sugar in 1888 was 16,916 tons; of copra, 4,219 

 tons. Of the total population of 125,000 only 

 2,500 are whites. 



AUSTRIA-HUNGARY. A dual monarchy in 

 central Europe, composed of the Empire of Aus- 

 tria, otherwise called the Cisleithan Monarchy, 

 and the Kingdom of Hungary, known also as 

 the Transleithan Monarchy or the lands of the 

 Crown of St. Stephen. 



The two halves of the empire have existed as 

 separate states since 1867, having one dynasty, a 

 common diplomacy, an army and a navy admin- 

 istered in common though e'ach monarchy legis- 

 lates separately on military affairs, the same 

 coinage, a customs union, and a reciprocal agree- 

 ment in regard to railroads and other matters of 

 common interest. The Emperor of Austria and 

 King of Hungary is Franz Josef I, born Aug. 

 18, 1830, who entered on his reign on Dec. 2, 1848. 

 The heir presumptive is his nephew the Arch- 

 duke Franz, born Dec. 18, 1863, son of the Arch- 

 duke Carl Ludwig and the Princess Annunciata, 

 daughter of King Ferdinand II of Naples. 



The following are the Ministers for Common 

 Affairs : Minister of Foreign Affairs and of the 

 Imperial House for the Whole Monarchy, Count 

 G. Kalnoky, appointed Nov. 21, 1881 : Minis- 

 ter of War for the Whole Monarchy, Field- Mar- 

 shal Baron Ferdinand Bauer, appointed March, 

 16, 1888; Minister of Finance for the Whole 

 Monarchy, Benjamin de Kallay, appointed June 

 4, 1882. 



Commerce. The general commerce of the 

 Austro - Hungarian customs union, including 

 Bosnia and Herzegovina, amounted in 1888 to 

 533,100,000 florins of imports and 725,500,000 

 florins of exports, compared with 568,600,000 

 florins of imports and 672,900,000 florins of ex- 

 ports in 1887. The largest imports in 1887 were 

 the following: Cotton, 56,500,000 florins; wool, 

 42,800.000 florins ; coffee, 33,000,000 florins ; silk, 

 19,500,000 florins ; leaf tobacco, 18.500.000 florins ; 

 hides, skins, and furs, 18,300,000 florins ; manu- 

 factured tobacco, 16,700,000 florins ; woolen 

 yarn, 16,400,000 florins ; cotton yarn, 15,200,000 

 florins ; leather, 14,900,000 florins ; coal, 14,800- 

 000 florins ; grain, 12,700.000 florins ; silk, 

 manufactures, 12,400,000 florins ; woolen manu- 

 factures, 12,000,000 florins ; colors and tanning 

 materials, 11,200,000 florins; machinery, 11>200,- 



