igS 



Our Social Conditions. 



By Frank J. Donohue. 



Although it is the custom to think and speak of the mother-colony as. 

 being rather more than one hundred years okl, dating from the arrival 

 of Governor Phillip in 1788^ it is much more accurate for the purposes 

 of the observer of the growth of our social state to reckon from at 

 least fifty years later. The year 1837 saw the departure of Sir Eichard 

 Bourke, whose administration as Governor may be said to have prepared 

 the way for Australian social conditions as we now know them. But the 

 population of the continent at that time only numbered about 100^000, 

 and it was not until Bourke' s term that Mitchell's exploratory expedi- 

 tion made known the advantages for settlement of what is now the 

 Colony of A^ictoria. But the historian of the future will probably 

 prefer to reckon, and with more justice, from the year 1850, regarding 

 all that went before as an experiment on diffei'ent lines altogether. 

 Then was ushered in the era of the modern j^opiih^tion, separate 

 colonies, the gold discovery, and responsible government. The popu- 

 lation began to inci'ease by leaps and bounds, and the spirit actuating 

 the community altered itself almost as completely as though a new 

 experiment in colonisation had been launched. The gold fever brought 

 us a new race — young, energetic, and full of the ambition of life and 

 the desire to make the most of its brilliant chances. We received the 

 incalculable benefit of a full stream of that adventurous pioneer spirit 

 of which Kipling has written in stirring verses, with the advantage 

 that the new-comers found a field ripe for settlement as well as for 

 adventure, and for the assimilation of those liberalising and popular 

 ideals of politics and social relations which have given the Australia 

 of to-day that breezy healthfulness which is the characteristic note 

 of the institutions we now enjoy. 



This is not the place to sketch the history of the growth of these 

 institutions ; but the steps by which they advanced may be briefly 

 indicated. The year before the date named saw the cessation of 

 transportation and the removal of that shadow on the colony's future. 

 The gold discovery came in 1851 — in Wentworth's well-worn phrase, 

 precipitating the colony into a nation. From the twilight of an 

 obscure antipodean settlement, the colony emerged into the day, and 

 riveted the attention of the world as a theati'e of boundless possi- 

 bilities. The people who came were of the type that turns possibilities 

 into certainties, and one of the first results of the extraordinary influx 

 was shown in the determination to make the country politically fit to 

 live in. For years the community had been struggling feebly towards 

 self-government and the privileges of free citizens. The stages had 

 been gradual but slow. Now the object was attained almost in a 



