LONELY AUSTRALIA: THE UNIQUE CONTINENT 



56! 



The various State governments ad- 

 vance money to prospectors and to min- 

 ing companies, drill for metals, coal and 

 oil, erect and operate crushers, testing 

 plants, construct roads, build dams and 

 reservoirs, buy and sell machinery. In 

 Victoria 26 batteries are run at govern- 

 ment expense ; in West Australia, 40. 

 New South Wales has "grub-staked" 

 prospectors to the sum of over $2,000,000. 



The mining towns of Australia empha- 

 size the Australians' love of home and 

 pleasant surroundings. The mushroom 

 city of Kalgoorlie in the land of "sun, 

 sand, sin, sorrow and sore eyes," where 

 water is obtained from the end of a 350- 

 mile pipe, has its gardens and lawns and 

 shade trees. 



To an American, whose idea of a min- 

 ing town is based on visits to Butte or 

 Virginia City, a day in Ballarat, Victoria, 

 is filled with surprises. He walks through 

 clean streets, lined with attractive build- 

 ings and adorned with statues, leading to 

 parks and public gardens and on to a 

 beautiful lake. Ballarat has demonstrated 

 the fact that mining town is not synony- 

 mous with ugliness and lack of public 

 spirit. 



THE IMMIGRATION AUSTRALIA SEEKS 



Australia is disappointed that of the 

 four large areas which offer congenial 

 homes for people of European blood, — 

 namely, Australia, Canada, United States 

 and Argentina — Australia alone is passed 

 by, while the other three favored regions 

 are receiving Europeans by hundreds of 

 thousands. She sees the United States 

 receiving in one year (1913) 1,197,892 

 people from abroad, more than the entire 

 net immigration to Australia for the past 

 fifty-three years, and in another year 

 (1910) enrolling four times as many 

 people born in the United Kingdom as 

 were living in Australia. 



The stream of immigrants has been 

 not only small but remarkably fluctuating 

 for individual States and for the Com- 

 monwealth, and at times has ceased alto- 

 gether. For the five years, 1 896-1 900, 

 the net immigration was only 2,487, and 

 the five years following showed a net loss 

 of 16,793. Since that date net immigra- 

 tion has again increased, and in 191 3 

 reached 55,000. 



In countries of large population the 

 rate of immigration is a matter of small 

 account, but a continent of nearly 3,000,- 

 000 square miles, with vast undeveloped 

 natural resources, must have people if 

 the financial burdens incident to develop- 

 ment are not to be crushing. On June 

 30, 19 14, before the beginning of the 

 European war, the debts of the six States 

 reached the enormous total of $1,550,- 

 000,000, or $245 per capita, in addition to 

 a Commonwealth public debt of $93,- 

 000,000. These startling totals for a 

 dominion with a population less than 

 New York City, while not directly com- 

 parable with the debts of most other 

 countries because much of the money is 

 invested in public utilities, are dispro- 

 portionate to the population and demand 

 interest charges not easily met. 



ENCOURAGING NEWCOMERS 



Viewed in the abstract, the advantages 

 offered by Australia to a foreigner are 

 exceptionally good. The climate is health- 

 ful, unoccupied land is abundant, and 

 social life is unusually pleasant. But in 

 spite of a vigorous campaign, immigrants 

 do not flock to the Commonwealth. Per- 

 haps, because the land, though practically 

 free, is not really so in the sense of the 

 homesteads in the United States, to which 

 absolute title is obtained by residence ; 

 and the available land also requires more 

 preparation than the prairies of Canada 

 before return in crop is possible, while 

 the rainfall is less reliable. 



Or it may be that the door for the 

 immigrant is not wide open. 



The type of immigrant desired is in- 

 dicated by the classes to which the States 

 and Commonwealth provide "assisted 

 passages." The South Australian list is 

 typical : "a. Agricultural or other rural 

 workers, b. Domestic helpers, c. Per- 

 sons whose introduction to the State will 

 not, in the opinion of the minister, cause 

 congestion in the State in any occupation 

 or trade." Even with agricultural labor- 

 ers "care is taken to limit the supply to 

 the demand." 



THOSE WHO ARE NOT INVITED 



Agriculturalists who will take up small 

 tracts of new land, and domestic servants, 

 are more than welcome, and to these 



