AUSTRALIA 494 



as 1849 tentative re taken in that 



direction. Not until 1885, however, when a 

 Council was established, was anything 

 definite accomplished, and not all of the colo- 

 nies joined in this. This body was merely 

 advisory, and could not control matters in any 

 colony. 



A national convention held at Sydney in 

 1891 proposed a union and mapped out the 

 main lines on which it should be organized, 

 but it was six years later before a constitutional 

 convention was actually assembled. The con- 

 stitution was submitted to the people of the 

 various colonies in 1898, and two years later, 

 after having been approved by the people, was 

 submitted to the Parliament of Great Britain. 

 Approved by that body and signed by Queen 

 Victoria, it went into effect January 1, 1901. 

 The Northern Territory was at that time a part 

 of South Australia, from which it was separated 

 ten years later. The first Commonwealth Par- 

 liament met at Melbourne in May, 1901, and 

 at once entered upon a struggle over the tariff 

 question. Finally, after months of conflict, a 

 protective tariff bill was passed, and the pro- 

 : ( >nist party has been in the ascendancy 

 during most of the succeeding period. One 

 feature of legislation has been a determined 

 effort to keep out Asiatics, that a "white Aus- 

 tralia" may be maintained. Merchants, stu- 

 dents and tourists of other races may enter 

 the country and remain for a time, but none 

 but whites may make their permanent homes 

 there. 



The Commonwealth is a country of oppor- 

 tunities and of promise. Such questions as 

 the conflicts between capital and labor, the 

 up-keep of roads, the assisting of agriculture 

 by reduction of freight rates and by the trans- 

 portation of cattle in times of drought have 

 received careful attention. Farmers who wish 

 to introduce new crops or establish new indus- 

 tries, such as the manufacture of dairy prod- 

 ucts, may receive assistance from the govern- 

 ment, as may those who find their crops 

 threatened by disease or insect pests. After 

 all the years during which it was first a land 

 of myth and later a land of wild adventure, 

 where gold-seekers and bush-rangers lived their 

 perilous lives, Australia has become a settled, 

 self-governing country, ready to take its place 

 among the intelligent, progressive nations of 

 the world. G.G. 



Other Items of Interest. The Torrens sys- 

 tem of land registration, which is gradually 

 supplanting others in Canada and the United 



AUSTRALIA 



es, came from Australia. It is explained in 

 another volume of this set. 



During the War of the Nations the name 

 Anzacs was given to the men of the Australia- 

 New Zealand Army Corps, the \\wrd being 

 derived from the initials of the longer name. 

 A town in the peninsula of Gallipoli was called 

 Anzac during the Dardanelles campaign. 



Darwin visited Australia on the journey de- 

 scribed in The Voyage of a Naturalist on 

 H. M. S. Beagle, and obtained some of the 

 knowledge which led to his great work on the 

 Origin of Species. 



The territory of Papua, or British New 

 Guinea, is controlled by Australia. In 1914 the 

 adjoining district, German New Guinea, was 

 seized by Australian troops, as were also the 

 Bismarck Archipelago to the northeast and 

 Germany's share of the adjacent Solomon 

 Islands. 



The proportion of divorced persons to mar- 

 ried persons is less than a third of what it is in 

 the United States, but perhaps twenty times 

 as great as in Canada. 



Though the island-continent contains fewer 

 people than Canada, it has two cities larger 

 than any in Canada. Sydney, with its sub- 

 urbs, is believed to have nearly three-quarters 

 of a million inhabitants, and Melbourne over 

 650,000. Adelaide's population is about 

 200,000; Brisbane's 150,000; Perth's, 100,000. 



Only 3.4 per cent of the white population 

 five years of age and over are illiterate. In 

 Canada the percentage is 10.5, and in the 

 United States 7.7 per cent of those ten years 

 and over cannot read or write. 



Since 1909 the Commonwealth has had a 

 system of old age pensions. Previously such 

 pensions had been paid in New South Wales, 

 Queensland and Victoria. Only three govern- 

 ments, Germany, Denmark and New Zealand, 

 introduced the measure earlier. 



The British system of pounds, shillings and 

 pence is in use. 



Five counties in the Northern Territory have 

 been named for British statesmen Disraeli, 

 Gladstone, Malmesbury, Palmerston and Rose- 

 bery. 



Australia's copper output is less than one- 

 tenth that of the United States; it is exceeded 

 by Japan, Mexico and Spain. 



Many Australians are great athletes. Their 

 teams have more than once held the Davis 

 Cup, emblematic of the world's championship 

 in tennis, and their crews have won the Grand 

 Challenge Cup of the Henley Regatta, in Eng- 



