6 Mr. /. T. Noble Anderson on Municipal Progress and 



Glimpses were also given of the Theatres, Cathedrals, and 

 Hospitals. Then Sydney was briefly referred to. It may well be 

 called the Queen City of the South, and in all the world has no 

 rival for its harbour. 



Here in the brief period of 17 years which have elapsed 

 between the lecturer's first and latest visit to it, more than two 

 hundred thousand (200,000) inhabitants have been added to its 

 population. 



As compared with our city, it must be remembered that these 

 young places have the buoyant hope of youth, and with an 

 unbounded confidence in the future they have carried out their 

 public works and laid out their cities and parks on a scale which 

 elsewhere would be regarded as not extravagant but wildly mad. 

 When, however, it is remembered that Melbourne and Sydney 

 are by nature the main emporia of a country equal in extent and 

 agricultural possibilities to France and Spain combined — and 

 probably superior to them in mineral wealth and other natural 

 resources — it will not be wondered at that the purses of the 

 empire have opened freely, and while the expenditure on their 

 public works has been more than double in almost every direction 

 than it has been in this city, they yet enjoy an immunity from the 

 high rate which even here presses so heavily. 



The Melbourne city's total rates are less than those of Belfast. 

 One cause of this is the high valuation of the properties and the 

 lands, owing to the attractions of town life for the wealthy class, 

 which the wonderful material prosperity of the country has created. 

 Another cause of the higher valuation is that public confidence in 

 the future of the city makes property almost a liquid asset. 



The concentration of population to the cities is largely due to 

 the wide distribution of wealth, but is also due to the protectionist 

 policy, which has fostered town industries. And in no part of 

 the world is so large an urban supported by so small a rural 

 population. The urban population actually exceeds the rural in 

 numbers. 



And in the case of Melbourne and Sydney these two cities 

 contain a population of considerably over one million, while their 

 two states only number two and a half millions. 



