OUR SOCIAL CONDITIONS. 30 1 



109 Vo ; where the Briton is content with 19 Ih. of butter and cheese, 

 his blood relation in New South Wales expects and receives 21. lb. ; 

 78 oz. of tea are contrasted with 1 13 oz. ; 75 lb. of sugar with 01 lb.; 

 while the consumption of grain foods is about equal, standing at 

 878 lb. and 880 lb. respectively. Even in i\\G United States, where 

 the conditions of life are said to be so easy, the meat consumption is 

 only 150 lb. ; grain foods, 370 lb. : potatoes, 170 lb., as against 205 lb. 

 in New South Wales ; sugar, 53 lb. ; and butter and cheese, 20 lb. ; 

 while the annual consumption of meat per head in France is only 77 lb. ; 

 in Germany, 64 lb. ; and in Italy, 2(3 lb. These figures convey a fair 

 approximate idea of the material conditions under which our people 

 live, as compared with those of other countries. They eat and 

 drink and spend more, work less for the necessaries of existence, have 

 a larger share of food luxuries, and in a general way get more out of 

 life than the masses of any other country in the world. And the calcu- 

 lations that show this, it should be remembered, are based on observa- 

 tions made not during a period of abnormal inflation, or even of 

 average prosperity, but at a time when the colony was feeling the 

 effect of an unexampled depression. 



There are no striking extremes of wealth and poverty in New South 

 Wales. Some large fortunes have been made, and against the solid 

 background of average comfort indicated by the facts just given there 

 is the usual poverty common to all large communities. But we know 

 nothing of the poor as a distinct class, and it has never been necessary 

 to adopt anything in the colony to correspond with the English Poor 

 Laws. Much of the relief given to the sick and necessitous poor is 

 paid for by voluntary subscription, but the State has generously 

 endowed hospitals and asylums to the same end, spending annually in 

 this way something like £300,000. The system of State children's 

 relief is imder the control of a board, which supervises the industrial 

 schools and reformatories as well as the scheme by which State children 

 are boarded out in private homes. The spirit in which this charitable 

 enterprise is administered has the excellent social effect of withdrawing 

 the young from those associations which would otherwise recruit the 

 ranks of pauperism and crime. But the conditions of bfe are so favour- 

 able that, generally speaking, it is only the ver}^ young, the aged, or 

 the infirm who require to be assisted by the State. Under normal 

 conditions the opportunities for employment are ample. There are 

 12-8 per cent, of the population owning property to the value of £100 

 and over, against 7 per cent, in the United Kingdom. Two years ago 

 the private property in New South Wales was equal to £336 per head, 

 the total value being upwards of £400,000,000 sterling, Avhile the actual 

 sum divided per year as earnings was npwards of £66,000,000. These 

 figures compare favourably on a population basis with those of any 

 other jDart of the world. 



So much, then, for the material side of our social conditions. It is 

 only to be expected that, as wealth and leism-e increased, there would 

 come a taste for the graces and intellectual luxuries of life, and that 

 as the pioneer effort of the early stages of colonisation began to bear 

 fruit the population would find time for an interest in something else 

 besides the mere struggle to live. That we have arrived at that stage 

 is perhaps attested by the fact that we i?iiend ovc-r two and a half 



