58 



AUSTRALIA AND NEW ZEALAND. 



characterized the agitation as insincere, and 

 prompted by annexation greed, and declared 

 that the class of offenders deported to New 

 Caledonia were not positive criminals, but 

 promised to respect as far as reasonable the 

 susceptibilities of the colonies. The English 

 Government did not press for pledges that 

 might offend French dignity and provoke the 

 Legislature to more unfavorable action than 

 would otherwise result. Later in the year the 

 French Government announced that the num- 

 ber of recidivistes to be dealt with under the 

 contemplated act would not exceed 5,000 the 

 first year, and would rapidly diminish in suc- 

 ceeding years. As the result of a parliament- 

 ary inquiry, it was decided that New Caledo- 

 nia could not take more than one fifth of these, 

 the remainder going to Cayenne. The French 

 Government offered to make a more effectual 

 extradition treaty to insure the return of es- 

 caped convicts to New Caledonia. 



The colonists were dissatisfied at the want 

 of vigor displayed by the Imperial Govern- 

 ment. In 1840 the people of Victoria resisted 

 by force the landing of English convicts at 

 Melbourne, and threatened to collect a ship-load 

 of the worst cases and land them on the coast 

 of Devonshire if the mother-country persist- 

 ed in sending criminals to their colony. This 

 menace was sufficient to put a stop to English 

 transportation. It was now proposed to return 

 escaped convicts from New Caledonia to 

 France, and also to apply to French steamship- 

 masters a law making it punishable for British 

 shipmasters to land criminals in Victoria, 

 passed while Tasmania was still a penal settle- 

 ment. Queensland, on whose shores escaped 

 French convicts oftenest land, took the lead by 

 enacting a law of this character. 



Legislation. Two important bills of a finan- 

 cial nature engaged the attention of the Legis- 

 lature during most of the session of 1884. 

 Their object was to increase the revenue to 

 meet the cost of railroad extensions partly 

 from the resources of the colony and not 

 swell inordinately the debt to foreign bond- 

 holders. 



The land act introduced by the Government 

 established the leasing system in Victoria. The 

 public domain remaining unsold consisted of 

 only 20,447,443 acres, classified as follows: 1. 

 Pasture lands, 8,300,160 acres; 2. Auriferous 

 lands, 961,760 acres; 3. Agricultural and grazing 

 lands, 8,712,000 acres; 4. Lands to be submit- 

 ted to public auction, 832,320 acres ; 6. State 

 forests, timber, and other reserves, and water, 

 1,538,313 acres; 6. Swamp-lands, 82,880 acres. 

 An act was passed in the session of 1883 to 

 allow a class of inferior land known as the 

 mallee scrub to be offered on pastoral leases. 

 About 4,000,000 acres were occupied under 

 this act, and the work of reclamation be- 

 gan. Under the new act the leasing sys- 

 tem was extended to the lands classified as 

 pasturable. The rental depends upon the 

 number of head of stock pastured, and is fixed 



at the rate of Is. per annum for each sheep and 

 5s. for every head of cattle. The leases for 

 blocks of 2,000 and 4,000 acres for fourteen 

 years are sold at public auction. The agricult- 

 ural and grazing lands are leased in 1,000-acre 

 blocks for fourteen years, at from 2d. to 4d. per 

 acre. The auriferous lands are to be let for 

 mining, and the swamp-lands leased in 160-acre 

 holdings for reclamation. 



The coalition ministry, which has a practi- 

 cally unanimous support, brought up the long- 

 mooted question of mining royalties under bet- 

 ter auspices than any previous government. 

 The precious metals in the earth belong by 

 common law to the Crown, but the Govern- 

 ment has never asserted its rights except in 

 demanding a license-fee from every digger. 

 Neither has it waived them, like the American 

 States, in favor of the discoverer. The miner 

 is not entitled to claim and work a deposit 

 that he has found, on payment of damages to 

 the owner of the land, as in the United States. 

 He is therefore obliged to make terms with the 

 owner if the discoveries are made on private 

 land. The land-owners are thus enabled prac- 

 tically to appropriate property rights that by 

 law are the prerogative of the Crown. They 

 exact a percentage of the gross yield of the 

 mines, of 5, 7|, 10, and sometimes 15 or 20 per 

 cent., which they call a royalty. Without la- 

 bor or risk they have in many cases received 

 the lion's share of the profits. The wealthy 

 Port Phillip and Clunes company has paid to 

 the freeholders 29 per cent, of its total profits ; 

 other companies as much as 50 and 60 per cent. 

 Some companies, working rich veins, have been 

 obliged to stop operations, upon finding them- 

 selves unable to pay the royalty contracted for^ 

 or upon higher charges being demanded. The 

 question is growing urgent in these times of 

 diminishing productiveness. The poorer quali- 

 ties of quartz, which would give employment 

 to the most labor, and which in the older fields 

 will soon become the only dependence of the 

 mining industry, can not be worked at all, 

 owing to the practice of exacting royalties. A 

 royalty of 2 per cent, of the gross product of 

 gold may swallow up 25 per cent, profit on the 

 capital invested in mining poor quartz lodes or 

 poor alluvial leads. The freeholders, who re- 

 ceive thousands of pounds per annum from 

 mines found on their estates, purchased the land 

 in most cases from the state at one pound per 

 acre. The Government proposes to tax the 

 royalties they receive, and to impose different 

 conditions as to mining rights on the lands to 

 be sold hereafter, by which the right of the 

 purchasers to exact royalties will be restricted, 

 and the state itself will receive a royalty from 

 the precious metals. 



Victoria took the lead of the mother-coun- 

 try, by passing an act in 1884 amalgamating the 

 two branches of the legal profession. 



New South Wales. The Governor is Lord Au- 

 gustus W. F. S. Loftns, appointed in 1879. The 

 Prime Minister and Colonial Secretary is Alex- 



