1466 AUSTRALASIA ILLUSTRATED. 



amusements during the period of the growing nation's adolescence may perhaps be taken 

 as a promise of earnestness in working out the problem of Australia's future. 



CONCLUSION. 



" I "HE results of the hundred years of Australasian story may be very briefly sum- 

 marized. The preceding pages present the outcome of what has been done in the 

 Southern Ocean since the way was thrown open by the early discoverers, and to 

 the philosophic observer of the world's growth, or the student of the development of 

 social and political conditions, no more pregnant chapter could be laid open in the world's 

 history. From small beginnings the Continent of Australia, silent for many centuries, 

 and adding nothing to the sum of the world's knowledge or its people's happiness, 

 has developed into what we have described it as being to-day an open field for the 

 world's surplus energy, in which the mistakes of Old World legislation can be corrected 

 under new conditions. The future Australian States have the lesson of the past before 

 them, with nothing in the way of the free application of its moral whenever it may 

 make itself apparent. All of the Australasian Colonies to-day enjoy Responsible Govern- 

 ment. Each controls its own affairs through an Executive, consisting of the Governor 

 and a Cabinet of Ministers, chosen from a Parliament composed of two Houses of Legis- 

 lature, of which one is always elective, and the other either partly nominee and partly 

 elective, or wholly nominee. During the thirty-three years since Responsible Govern- 

 ment was inaugurated there has been formed a distinct political class in each colony, 

 capable of supplying to its public life the material from which responsible Ministers of 

 the Crown may be drawn. Many of those who made political history in Australia 

 during its first generation of legislative life are passing, or have passed, away. To 

 Forbes, Wardell, Bland, and others who prepared the way for the first free Constitution, 

 and to Wentworth, Cowper, Donaldson, Plunkett, Deas-Thomson, Martin, Murray, and 

 others who won it, all Australia is indebted, whatever the differences of opinion may be 

 as to the scope of the Constitution these latter framed. The names of those who have 

 administered it are familiar enough to Australian ears in all the Colonies : among them 

 may be mentioned Donaldson, Cowper, Parker, Forster, Robertson, Dalley, Martin, Parkes 

 and others, in New South Wales ; Haines, O'Shanassey, Duffy, Nicholson, McCulloch, 

 Higinbotham, Francis, Service and Berry, in Victoria; Finniss, Torrens, Reynolds, Water- 

 house, Ayers, Boucaut, Hart and Blyth, in South Australia; Herbert, Macalister, Macrossan, 

 Lilley, Palmer, . Mcllwraith and Griffith, in Queensland ; Champ, Whyte, Dry, Fysh, 

 Douglas and ' Giblin, in Tasmania ; and Sewell, Bell, Fox, Stafford, Atkinson, Domett, 

 Whitaker, Weld,, Waterhouse, Vogel, Pollen, Grey, Stout and others, in New Zealand. 

 It would be easy to add to this list of names, but those given will suffice to, mark 

 the stages in the history of Australian political development. 



We are now within a month's steam of Europe by sea, and within a few hours by 

 telegraphic communication. Year by year the facilities for travel became easier, and the 

 ends of the world are drawn nearer together. The advantages offered by Australia as 

 a field for the investment of European capital, and for the settlement of the thousands 

 who are ever and again crowded out of the Old World, are day by day becoming more 



