44 



AUSTRALIA AND POLYNESIA. 



toria cast the only dissentient vote. This colony 

 may appoint delegates to the tariff commission, 

 but will not be disposed to abandon easily a 

 tariff system under which powerful interests 

 have grown up. 



The commercial rivalry between the two 

 older colonies has entered a sharper stage since 

 the completion, in the early part of 1881, of 

 the railroad from Sydney to the Murray River, 

 where it meets the railroad from Melbourne. 

 The New South Wales ministry have fixed the 

 freight rates at a low figure, in order to attract 

 the trade of the extensive Riverina district 

 away from Melbourne to Sydney. This is a 

 reversal of free-trade principles which provokes 

 the sarcasm of the Victorian statesmen ; but 

 against its economic effects they can have no 

 remedy except to conform their tariff to that 

 of the sister colony. 



The only actual result of the conference, be- 

 sides the majority vote in favor of a tariff com- 

 mission, and the only unanimously approved 

 proposition, was the decision in favor of the 

 establishment of an Australian Court of Appeal. 

 A project was drawn up and adopted for a law 

 to be brought before each of the colonial Parlia- 

 ments, and then submitted for ratification to 

 the Imperial Government. Fugitives from ar- 

 rest on criminal charges, or men who have 

 abandoned wife or child, may be apprehended, 

 according to one of the provisions of the pro- 

 posed legal convention, upon warrants taken 

 out in any one of the colonies, or upon tele- 

 graphic notification that the warrants have 

 been issued. 



The intercolonial conference in discussing 

 plans looking to confederation did not commit 

 themselves to the conjugate principle of self- 

 maintenance, for, on adopting a resolution rec- 

 ommending the increase of the naval squadron, 

 they rejected a proposal that the colonies should 

 bear half the cost. With reference to out- 

 rages committed by islanders in the South 

 Seas, the conference proposed that the High 

 Commissioner who has jurisdiction in such 

 cases should be granted extended powers, but 

 that in felony cases appeal should lie to the 

 Supreme Court of one of the colonies against 

 his decisions. The murders of Bishop Patter- 

 son and Commodore Goodenough, and more 

 recent outrages committed by the natives of 

 the Solomon, New Hebrides, Santa Cruz, and 

 New Ireland groups, were probably reprisals 

 provoked by the atrocities of the cruisers for 

 laborers to supply the sugar-plantations of 

 Queensland and other demands for " Karnack- 

 ies." The practice of kidnapping, and other 

 cruelties of this form of slave-traffic, have con- 

 tinued to the most recent years, if they do not 

 still take place.* 



remains uoder the control of the British Parliament and is 

 governed from Downing Street. For the three classes of 

 British colonies see "Annual Cyclopaedia" for 1879, under 

 GEEAT BBITAIV AND IRELAND. 



* During the yoar 1SS1 natives of the Pacific islands have 

 taken reprisals on one British labor-ship and on a French ves- 

 sel which was probably mistaken for a labor-cruiser. The 



In regard to Chinese immigration the har- 

 monious action of the colonies is difficult. The 

 Government of West Australia issued an order 

 encouraging this immigration at the public 

 expense a step which was condemned by 

 the representatives of all the other colonies. 

 Queensland and South Australia, which also 

 possess territory within the torrid zone, favor 

 limited immigration, while in New South Wales 

 and Victoria intense hostility to the Chinese 

 prevails. The conference embodied their ob- 

 jections to the importation of these laborers 

 by the Government into the crown colony of 

 West Australia in a memorial addressed to 

 Lord Kimberly, British Secretary for the Col- 

 onies. 



The New South Wales Parliament gave their 

 principal attention, upon convening in the sum- 

 mer, to an act restricting Chinese immigration. 

 A poll-tax of ten pounds is levied on every 

 Chinaman upon landing, and ship-masters are 

 forbidden, under a heavy penalty, to bring more 

 than one to every one hundred tons of ship's 

 burden. The Government is also empowered 

 to quarantine, indefinitely, any vessel carrying 

 Chinese passengers a provision intended as a 

 menace to deter the importation of these un- 

 welcome producers. 



By the returns of the late census it appears 

 that the area of wheat cultivation in Australia 

 has doubled in ten years. South Australia 

 leads in this product. The Australian crop is 

 only one third as great as that of the British 

 Islands, although the area sown is nearly the 

 same. Only about one half of the crop is 

 available for export, and the prices must be 

 high enough to amply remunerate the British 

 wheat-grower before the Australians can ex- 

 port wheat to Europe with a profit. The pros- 

 pects of gold-mining in all of the colonies are 

 better than they have been for years. New 

 fields have been opened on the northern coast 

 of Australia. In New South Wales new dig- 

 gings of remarkable richness have been dis- 

 covered. The opening of gold and tin mines 

 in Tasmania has given that colony a commer- 

 cial impulse, and produced an influx of capital 

 and immigration such as never were known 

 before. 



The revenues of New South Wales continue 

 to increase beyond current wants from the sales 

 of land. The revenue for the year ending March 

 1, 1881, exceeded that of the preceding year 

 by 1,080,000. The revenue for the fiscal year 

 1880 was 4,912,000. The Treasurer's estimate 

 for 1881 was 5,440,000, which was consider- 

 ably exceeded in the receipts for the first half 

 of the year, and promised to reach 6,000,000. 



outrages committed by the crews of labor-vessels, notably 

 the brig Carl, were made the subject of a Parliamentary in- 

 vestigation eight years ago, and measures were taken by the 

 British Government to suppress the evil. The employers of 

 Polynesian coolies in Queensland are obliged, under a law of 

 the colony, to return them, on the expiration of their term of 

 service, to their native islands. The familiar term for the 

 South Sea coolies among Australians, Kcinutckie. is a cor- 

 ruption of Kanaka, the native name for the Sandwich Island- 

 ers. 



