AUSTRALASIA. 



A (JSTRIA-HUNG AR Y. 



Agriculture. Commissioner of Forests, and Minister 

 in Charge of Advances to Si-tilers, J. Mackenzie; 

 Minister of Public Works, Minister of Marine, and 

 Minister in Charge of Public Printing Office, W. 

 Hall-Jones: Minister of Railways and Minister of 

 Mines, A. J. Cadman; Minister of Education and 

 Immigration and Minister in Charge of Hospitals 

 and Charitable Aid, W. C. Walker. 



While the public finances of the Australian colo- 

 nies show a gratifying recovery, achieved by the aid 

 of strenuous retrenchments, the balance sheet of New 

 Zealand is still more favorable. There was a large 

 surplus at the end of the financial year 1898, and 

 the Government contemplated, after long absten- 

 tion from borrowing, the issue of a new loan of 

 2,000.000 to be expended on railroads and irriga- 

 tion for the- more speedy development of the 

 country. Customs, stamps, railroads, post-office, 

 land, income, excise, and territorial revenue all ex- 

 ceeded the estimates. The Government proposes 

 to establish an accident and insurance department. 

 Maori lands have lately been sold to whites by 

 authority of the colonial Parliament, but the 

 Premier in the session that began on June 24, 1898, 

 carried a bill stopping the sales and permitting 

 only leases granted by a board containing repre- 

 sentatives of both races, the rent going to native 

 owners, thereby preventing the Maoris from becom- 

 ing destitute and landless. The imposition of a 

 dog tax of 10s., designed to accustom the Maoris to 

 direct taxation and reduce the number of dogs kept 

 by them, which were a danger to sheep and cattle, 

 occasioned an insurrection in the remote northern 

 district of the Hansaus. This was quickly sup- 



S-essed in May by an artillery detachment with 

 axims. 



In the parliamentary session that began on June 

 24, 1898, the Government brought forward bills in- 

 creasing the volunteer corps and providing them 

 with magazine rifles and other improved armaments, 

 establishing old-age pensions, putting the municipal 

 franchise on a more equitable basis, abolishing life 

 tenure in the Legislative Council, and remedying 

 the electoral system. The old-age-pension scheme, 

 which had failed to pass in the previous session, 

 was approved by the House of Representatives in 

 September. 



Fiji. The Governor, who is also High Commis- 

 sioner for the Western Pacific, is Sir G. T. M. 

 O'Brien. The Legislative Council consists of (5 

 official and 6 non-official nominated members. 

 Twelve of the 1(5 provinces are administered by 

 native chiefs and 3 of them and Rotuma by Euro- 

 pean commissioners. 



British New Guinea. The southeastern part 

 of New Guinea, with the D Entrecasteaux and 

 Louisiade Islands, was annexed to the British Em- 

 pire in 1887. The area is 88,460 square miles and 

 the population, which includes 250 Europeans, 

 about 350,000. The cost of administration, about 

 L'l.'i.oOO a year, is borne in equal shares by Queens- 

 land, Victoria, and New South Wales. The 

 Lieutenant Governor is Sir William MacGrcgor. 

 The revenue raised on the island, chiefly from cus- 

 toms duties, was 0,547 in 1806. The island is rich 

 in cocoa and sago palms, sandalwood, ebony, gums, 

 rattan, and other forest produce. Trcpang, copra, 

 pearl shell, pearls, sandalwood, and gold arc the 

 chief exports, the total value of which in 18!)(> was 

 19.401, exclusive of pearls and of gold, which is 

 dug by about <>0 Australian miners and numerous 

 natives in Woodlark and the Louisiade Islands and 

 on the coast. 



The governments of Queensland, New South 

 Wales, and Victoria agreed in January, 1898, to 

 continue the present arrangement in regard to 

 British New Guinea for four years longer, at the 



end of which time the territory is expected to be 

 self-supporting. The British Secretary of the 

 Colonies contemplated departing from the policy of 

 preserving all the land for the natives, which the 

 discovery of gold makes it more difficult to pursue, 

 when a group of English capitalists, the Somers- 

 Vine-Lowles syndicate, applied for a concession of a 

 tract containing 250,000 acres for the purpose of 

 cultivating rubber and other products or for min- 

 ing. When Mr. Chamberlain agreed to make the 

 sale, subject to the approval of the Queensland 

 Legislature, the Premiers of the three colonies that 

 support the administration of New Guinea entered 

 a protest, which blocked the transaction. 



The action of the Queensland Government in ap- 

 proving the cession of land to the syndicate _ 

 rise to serious objections on the part of the govern- 

 ments of New South Wales and Victoria. It gave 

 incalculable advantages to a speculative syndicate 

 of Englishmen with small capital and was likely to 

 prove detrimental to Australian explorers and gold 

 seekers. At a conference of colonial Premiers in 

 August the British Government was requested to 

 revoke the land grant, for which Sir William 

 MacGregor assumed all the responsibility. The 

 New South Wales and Victoria government's agreed 

 to continue their contributions for the support of 

 the administration of New Guinea only on condi- 

 tion that their representations regarding the con- 

 cession should be heeded. 



AUSTRIA-HUNGARY, a dual monarchy in cen- 

 tral Europe, constituted by the fundamental law 

 of Dec. 21, 1867, and composed of the Empire of 

 Austria and the Kingdom of Hungary, two insepa- 

 rable constitutional monarchies, declared to be hered- 

 itary in the male line of the house of Hapsburg and 

 in the female line in default of male heirs. Legis- 

 lative authority in matters common to both monar- 

 chies viz., foreign affairs, the army and navy, 

 common finances, indirect taxation, the coinage, 

 railroads in which both monarchies are interested, 

 and the administration of the occupied provinces of 

 Turkey is committed to the Delegations, elected 

 from among their members by the legislative bodies 

 of the two halves of the empire, composed of 20 

 members from the upper and 40 from the lower 

 chamber of each parliament. The Delegations de- 

 liberate and vote separately on every question, and 

 when they come to different decisions they reach a 

 final conclusion by a joint ballot without debate. 



The reigning Emperor of Austria and King of 

 Hungary is Franz Josef I, born Aug. 18, 1830, and 

 proclaimed Emperor on Dec. 2, 1848. upon the ab- 

 dication of his uncle, Ferdinand I. He assumed the 

 crown of St. Stephen upon the restoration of the 

 Hungarian Constitution, June, 8, 1867. The heir 

 presumptive is Archduke Franz Ferdinand d'Este, 

 born Dec. 18, 1863. son of the Archduke Karl Lud- 

 wig and nephew of the Emperor. 



The common ministers, heads of the three exec- 

 utive departments for common affairs, were in the 

 beginning of 1898: Minister of Foreign Affairs and 

 of the Imperial House for the Whole Monarchy, 

 Count Agenor Maria Adam Goluchowski : Minister 

 of War, Gen. Edmund, Ecller von Krieghammer": 

 Minister of Common Finance, Benjamin de Kallay. 



Area and Population. The area of the Austro- 

 Ilungarian dominions, not including the occupied 

 Turkish provinces of Bosnia and Herzegovina, is 

 240,942 square miles, and the total population on 

 Dec. 31, 1890, was 41,358,886. 



The area of Austria proper is 115,903 square 

 miles, and the population at the last census was 

 23.N!>r>,413, consisting of 11,689,129 males and 12,- 

 , > (H;.','84 females. Divided on the basis of language, 

 there were 8,461,580 German Austrians, 5.472.871 

 Bohemians, Moravians, and Slovakians, 3,719,232 



