Authorities.—Dr A.W. Howitt,The Native Tribes of South-east Australia(1904) andOn the Organization of Australian Tribes(1889); G.T. Bettany,The Red, Brown and Black Men of Australia(1890); B. Spencer and F.J. Gillen,Native Tribes of Central Australia(1899);The Northern Tribes of Central Australia(London, 1904); E.M. Curr,The Australian Race(3 vols., 1886-1887); G.W. Rusden,History of Australia(1897);Australasia, British Empire Series (Kegan Paul & Co., 1900); A.R. Wallace,Australasia(1880, new ed., 2 vols., 1893-1895); Rev. Lorimer Fison and Dr A.W. Howitt,Kamilaroi and Kurnai, Group Marriage and Relationship(Melbourne, 1880); H. Ling Roth,Queensland Aborigines(Brisbane, 1897); Carl Lumholtz,Among Cannibals(1889); Walter E. Roth,Ethnological Studies among the North-west-central Queensland Aborigines(London, 1897); Mrs K. Langloh Parker,Euahlayi Tribes(1905); F.J. Gillen,Notes on Manners and Customs of the Aborigines of the Macdonnell Ranges belonging to the Arunta Tribe; J.E. Frazer, “The Beginnings of Religion and Totemism among the Australian Aborigines,”Fortnightly Review, July 1905; N.W. Thomas,Native Tribes of Australia(1907).
Authorities.—Dr A.W. Howitt,The Native Tribes of South-east Australia(1904) andOn the Organization of Australian Tribes(1889); G.T. Bettany,The Red, Brown and Black Men of Australia(1890); B. Spencer and F.J. Gillen,Native Tribes of Central Australia(1899);The Northern Tribes of Central Australia(London, 1904); E.M. Curr,The Australian Race(3 vols., 1886-1887); G.W. Rusden,History of Australia(1897);Australasia, British Empire Series (Kegan Paul & Co., 1900); A.R. Wallace,Australasia(1880, new ed., 2 vols., 1893-1895); Rev. Lorimer Fison and Dr A.W. Howitt,Kamilaroi and Kurnai, Group Marriage and Relationship(Melbourne, 1880); H. Ling Roth,Queensland Aborigines(Brisbane, 1897); Carl Lumholtz,Among Cannibals(1889); Walter E. Roth,Ethnological Studies among the North-west-central Queensland Aborigines(London, 1897); Mrs K. Langloh Parker,Euahlayi Tribes(1905); F.J. Gillen,Notes on Manners and Customs of the Aborigines of the Macdonnell Ranges belonging to the Arunta Tribe; J.E. Frazer, “The Beginnings of Religion and Totemism among the Australian Aborigines,”Fortnightly Review, July 1905; N.W. Thomas,Native Tribes of Australia(1907).
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History
1.The Discovery of Australia.
It is impossible to say who were the first discoverers of Australia, although there is evidence that the Chinese had some knowledge of the continent so far back as the 13th century. The Malays, also, would seem to have been acquainted with the northern coast; while Marco Polo, who visited the East at the close of the 13th century, makes reference to the reputed existence of a great southern continent. There is in existence a map, dedicated to Henry VIII. of England, on which a large southern land is shown, and the tradition of a Terra Australis appears to have been current for a long period before it enters into authentic history.
In 1503 a French navigator named Binot Paulmyer, sieur de Gonneville, was blown out of his course, and landed on a large island, which was claimed to be the great southern land of tradition, although Flinders and other authorities are inclined to think that it must have been Madagascar. Some French authorities confidently put forward a claim that Guillaume le Testu, of Provence, sighted the continent in 1531. The Portuguese also advance claims to be the first discoverers of Australia, but so far the evidence cannot be said to establish their pretensions. As early as 1597 the Dutch historian, Wytfliet, describes the Australis Terra as the most southern of all lands, and proceeds to give some circumstantial particulars respecting its geographical relation to New Guinea, venturing the opinion that, were it thoroughly explored, it would be regarded as a fifth part of the world.
Early in the 17th century Philip III. of Spain sent out an expedition from Callao, in Peru, for the purpose of searching for a southern continent. The little fleet comprised three vessels, with the Portuguese pilot, De Quiros, asDe Torres.navigator, and De Torres as admiral or military commander. They left Callao on the 21st of December 1605, and in the following year discovered the island now known as Espiritu Santo, one of the New Hebrides group, which De Quiros, under the impression that it was indeed the land of which he was in search, namedLa Austrialia del Espiritu Santo. Sickness and discontent led to a mutiny on De Quiros’ vessel, and the crew, overpowering their officers during the night, forced the captain to navigate his ship to Mexico. Thus, abandoned by his consort, De Torres, compelled to bear up for the Philippines to refit, discovered and sailed through the strait that bears his name, and may even have caught a glimpse of the northern coast of the Australian continent. His discovery was not, however, made known until 1792, when Dalrymple rescued his name from oblivion, bestowing it upon the passage which separates New Guinea from Australia. De Quiros returned to Spain to re-engage in the work of petitioning the king to despatch an expedition for the purpose of prosecuting the discovery of the Terra Australis. He was finally successful in his petitions, but died before accomplishing his work, and was buried in an unknown grave in Panama, never being privileged to set his foot upon the continent the discovery of which was the inspiration of his life.
During the same year in which De Torres sailed through the strait destined to make him famous, a little Dutch vessel called the “Duyfken,” or “Dove,” set sail from Bantam, in Java, on a voyage of discovery. This ship enteredDutch discoverers.the Gulf of Carpentaria, and sailed south as far as Cape Keerweer, or Turn-again. Here some of the crew landed, but, being attacked by natives, made no attempt to explore the country. In 1616 Dirk Hartog discovered the island bearing his name. In 1622 the “Leeuwin,” or “Lioness,” made some discoveries on the south-west coast; and during the following year the yachts “Pera” and “Arnheim” explored the shores of the Gulf of Carpentaria. Arnheim Land, a portion of the Northern Territory, still appears on many maps as a memento of this voyage. Among other early Dutch discoverers were Edel; Pool, in 1629, in the Gulf of Carpentaria; Nuyts, in the “Guide Zeepaard,” along the southern coast, which he called, after himself, Nuyts Land; De Witt; and Pelsaert, in the “Batavia.” Pelsaert was wrecked on Houtman’s Abrolhos; his crew mutinied, and he and his party suffered greatly from want of water. The record of his voyage is interesting from the fact that he was the first to carry back to Europe an authentic account of the western coast of Australia, which he described in any but favourable terms. It is to Dutch navigators in the early portion of the 17th century that we owe the first really authentic accounts of the western coast and adjacent islands, and in many instances the names given by these mariners to prominent physical features are still retained. By 1665 the Dutch possessed rough charts of almost the whole of the western littoral, while to the mainland itself they had given the name of New Holland. Of the Dutch discoverers, Pelsaert was the only one who made any detailed observations of the character of the country inland, and it may here be remarked that his journal contains the first notice and description of the kangaroo that has come down to us.
In 1642 Abel Janszoon Tasman sailed on a voyage of discovery from Batavia, the headquarters of the governor and council of the Dutch East Indies, under whose auspices the expedition was undertaken. He was furnished with a yacht, the “Heemskirk,” and a fly-boat, the “Zeehaen” (or “Sea Hen”), under the command of Captain Jerrit Jansen. He left Batavia on what has been designated by Dutch historians the “Happy Voyage,” on the 14th of August 1642. After a visit to the Mauritius, then a Dutch possession, Tasman bore away to the south-east, and on the 24th of November sighted the western coast of the land which he named Van Diemen’s Land, in honour of the governor under whose directions he was acting. The honour was later transferred to the discoverer himself, and the island is now known as Tasmania. Tasman doubled the southern extremity of Van Diemen’s Land and explored the east coast for some distance. The ceremony of hoisting a flag and taking possession of the country in the name of the government of the Netherlands was actually performed, but the description of the wildness of the country, and of the fabulous giants by which Tasman’s sailors believed it to be inhabited, deterred the Dutch from occupying the island, and by the international principle of “non-user” it passed from their hands. Resuming his voyage in an easterly direction, Tasman sighted the west coast of the South Island of New Zealand on the 13th of December of the same year, and describes the coast-line as consisting of “high mountainous country.”
The first English navigator to sight the Australian continent was William Dampier, who made a visit to these shores in 1688, as supercargo of the “Cygnet,” a trader whose crew had turned buccaneers. On his return to England heDampier.published an account of his voyage, which resulted in his being sent out in the “Roebuck” in 1699 to prosecute his discoveries further. To him we owe the exploration of the coast for about 900 m.—from Shark’s Bay to Dampier’s Archipelago, and thence to Roebuck Bay. He appears to have landed in several places in search of water. His account of the country wasquite as unfavourable as Pelsaert’s. He described it as barren and sterile, and almost devoid of animals, the only one of any importance somewhat resembling a raccoon—a strange creature, which advanced by great bounds or leaps instead of walking, using only its hind legs, and covering 12 or 15 ft. at a time. The reference is, of course, to the kangaroo, which Pelsaert had also remarked and quaintly described some sixty years previously.
During the interval elapsing between Dampier’s two voyages, an accident led to the closer examination of the coasts of Western Australia by the Dutch. In 1684 a vessel had sailed from Holland for the Dutch possessions in the East Indies, and after rounding the Cape of Good Hope, she was never again heard of. Some twelve years afterwards the East India Company fitted out an expedition under the leadership of Commander William de Vlamingh, with the object of searching for any traces of the lost vessel on the western shores of New Holland. Towards the close of the year 1696 this expedition reached the island of Rottnest, which was thoroughly explored, and early the following year a landing party discovered and named the Swan river. The vessels then proceeded northward without finding any traces of the object of their search, but, at the same time, making fairly accurate charts of the coast-line.
The great voyage of Captain James Cook, in 1769-1770, was primarily undertaken for the purposes of observing the transit of Venus, but he was also expressly commissioned to ascertain “whether the unexplored part of theCook.southern hemisphere be only an immense mass of water, or contain another continent.” H.M.S. “Endeavour,” the vessel fitted out for the voyage, was a small craft of 370 tons, carrying twenty-two guns, and built originally for a collier, with a view rather to strength than to speed. Chosen by Cook himself, she was renamed the “Endeavour,” in allusion to the great work which her commander was setting out to achieve. Mr Charles Green was commissioned to conduct the astronomical observations, and Sir Joseph Banks and Dr Solander were appointed botanists to the expedition. After successfully observing the transit from the island of Tahiti, or Otaheite, as Cook wrote it, the “Endeavour’s” head was turned south, and then north-west, beating about the Pacific in search of the eastern coast of the great continent whose western shores had been so long known to the Dutch. On the 6th of October 1769 the coast of New Zealand was sighted, and two days later Cook cast anchor in Poverty Bay, so named from the inhospitality and hostility of the natives.
After voyaging westward for nearly three weeks, Cook, on the 19th of April 1770, sighted the eastern coast of Australia at a point which he named after his lieutenant, who discovered it, Point Hicks, and which modern geographers identify with Cape Everard.
The “Endeavour” then coasted northward, and after passing and naming Mount Dromedary, the Pigeon House, Point Upright, Cape St George and Red Point, Botany Bay was discovered on the 28th of April 1770, and as it appeared to offer a suitable anchorage, the “Endeavour” entered the bay and dropped anchor. The ship brought-to opposite a group of natives, who were cooking over a fire. The great navigator and his crew, unacquainted with the character of the Australian aborigines, were not a little astonished that these natives took no notice of them or their proceedings. Even the splash of the anchor in the water, and the noise of the cable running out through the hawse-hole, in no way disturbed them at their occupation, or caused them to evince the slightest curiosity. But as the captain of the “Endeavour” ordered out the pinnace and prepared to land, the natives threw off their nonchalance; for on the boat approaching the shore, two men, each armed with a bundle of spears, presented themselves on a projecting rock and made threatening signs to the strangers. It is interesting to note that the ingeniouswommera, or throw-stick, which is peculiar to Australia, was first observed on this occasion. As the men were evidently determined to oppose any attempt at landing, a musket was discharged between them, in the hope that they would be frightened by the noise, but it produced no effect beyond causing one of them to drop his bundle of spears, of which, however, he immediately repossessed himself, and with his comrade resumed the same menacing attitude. At last one cast a stone towards the boat, which earned him a charge of small shot in the leg. Nothing daunted, the two ran back into the bush, and presently returned furnished with shields made of bark, with which to protect themselves from the firearms of the crew. Such intrepidity is certainly worthy of passing notice. Unlike the American Indians, who supposed Columbus and his crew to be supernatural beings, and their ships in some way endowed with life, and were thrown into convulsions of terror by the first discharge of firearms which they witnessed, these Australians were neither excited to wonder by the ship nor overawed by the superior number and unknown weapons of the strangers. Cook examined the bay in the pinnace, and landed several times; but by no endeavour could he induce the natives to hold any friendly communication with him. The well-known circumstance of the great variety of new plants here obtained, from which Botany Bay derives its name, should not be passed over. Before quitting the bay the ceremony was performed of hoisting the Union Jack, first on the south shore, and then near the north head, formal possession of the territory being thus taken for the British crown. During the sojourn in Botany Bay the crew had to perform the painful duty of burying a comrade—a seaman named Forby Sutherland, who was in all probability the first British subject whose body was committed to Australian soil.
After leaving Botany Bay, Cook sailed northward. He saw and named Port Jackson, but forbore to enter the finest natural harbour in Australia. Broken Bay and other inlets, and several headlands, were also seen and named, but the vessel did not come to an anchor till Moreton Bay was reached, although the wind prevented Cook from entering this harbour. Still sailing northward, taking notes as he proceeded for a rough chart of the coast, and landing at Bustard and Keppel Bays and the Bay of Inlets, Cook passed over 1300 m. without the occurrence of any event worthy of being chronicled, till suddenly one night at ten o’clock the water was found to shoal, without any sign of breakers or land. While Cook was speculating on the cause of this phenomenon, and was in the act of ordering out the boats to take soundings, the “Endeavour” struck heavily, and fell over so much that the guns, spare cables, and other heavy gear had at once to be thrown overboard to lighten the ship. As day broke, attempts were made to float the vessel off with the morning tide; but these were unsuccessful. The water was rising so rapidly in the hold that with four pumps constantly going the crew could hardly keep it in check. At length one of the midshipmen suggested the device of “fothering,” which he had seen practised in the West Indies. This consists of passing a sail, attached to cords, and charged with oakum, wool, and other materials, under the vessel’s keel, in such a manner that the suction of the leak may draw the canvas into the aperture, and thus partially stop the vent. This was performed with great success, and the vessel was floated off with the evening tide. The land was soon after made near the mouth of a small stream, which Cook called, after the ship, the Endeavour river. A headland close by he named Cape Tribulation. The ship was steered into the river, and there careened and thoroughly repaired. Cook having completed the survey of the east coast, to which he gave the name of New South Wales, sighted and named Cape York, the northernmost point of Australia, and took final possession of his discoveries northward from 38° S. to 10½° S., on a spot which he named Possession Island, thence returning to England by way of Torres Straits and the Indian Ocean.
The great navigator’s second voyage, undertaken in 1772, with the “Resolution” and the “Adventure,” is of less importance. The vessels became separated, and both at different times visited New Zealand. Captain Tobias Furneaux, in the “Adventure,” also found his way to Storm Bay in Tasmania. In 1777, while on his way to search for a north-east passage between the Atlantic and Pacific oceans, Cook again touched at the coast of Tasmania and New Zealand.
On his first voyage, in 1770, Cook had some grounds for the belief that Van Diemen’s Land, as Tasmania was then called, was a separate island. The observations of Captain Furneaux, however, did not strengthen this belief, and when making his final voyage, the great navigator appears to have definitely concluded that it was part of the mainland of Australia. This continued to be the opinion of geographers until 1798, when Bass discovered the strait which bears his name. The next recorded expedition is a memorable one in the annals of Australian history—the despatch of a British colony to the shores of Botany Bay. The fleet sailed in May 1787, and arrived off the Australian coast early in the following January.
2.Inland Exploration.
For a period of twenty-five years after the first establishment of a British settlement in Australia, the colonists were only acquainted with the country along the coast extending northwards about 70 m. from Sydney and about a like distance to the south and shut in to the west by the Blue Mountain range, forming a narrow strip not more than 50 m. wide at its broadest part.
The Blue Mountains attain a height of between 3000 and 4000 ft. only, but they are intersected with precipitous ravines 1500 ft. deep, which baffled every effort to reach the interior until in 1813, when a summer of severe drought had made it of vital importance to find new pastures, three of the colonists, Messrs Blaxland, Lawson and Wentworth, more fortunate than their predecessors in exploration, after crossing the Nepean river at Emu Plains and ascending the Dividing Range, were able to reach a position enabling them to obtain a view of the grassy valley of the Fish river, which lies on the farther side of the Dividing Range. The western descent of the mountains appeared to the explorers comparatively easy, and they returned to report their discovery. A line of road was constructed across the mountains as far as the Macquarie river by the surveyor, Mr Evans, and the town of Bathurst laid out. This marks the beginning of the occupation of the interior of the continent. Some small expeditions were made from Bathurst, resulting in the discovery of the Lachlan, and in 1816 the first of the great exploration expeditions of Australia was fitted outOxley.under Lieutenant Oxley, R.N. Oxley was accompanied by Mr Evans and Mr Allan Cunningham the botanist, and the object of his expedition was to trace the course of the Lachlan in a westerly direction. Oxley traced the river until it lost itself in the swamps east of 147° E., then crossing the river he traversed the country between the Lachlan and Murrumbidgee as far as 34° S. and 144° 30′ E. On his return journey Oxley again crossed the Lachlan about 160 m., measured along the river, below the point where he left it on his journey south. Continuing in a north-easterly direction Oxley struck the Macquarie river at a place he called Wellington, and from this place in the following year he organized a second expedition in hopes of discovering an inland sea. He was, however, disappointed in this, as after descending the course of the Macquarie below Mount Harris, he found that the river ended in an immense swamp overgrown with reeds. Oxley now turned aside—led by Mr Evans’s report of the country eastward—crossed the Arbuthnot range, and traversing the Liverpool Plains, and ascending the Peel and Cockburn rivers to the Blue Mountains, gained sight of the open sea, which he reached at Port Macquarie. A valuable extension of geographical knowledge had been gained by this circuitous journey of more than 800 m. Yet its result was a disappointment to those who had looked for means of inland navigation by the Macquarie river, and by its supposed issue in a mediterranean sea.
During the next two or three years public attention was occupied with Captain King’s maritime explorations of the north-west coast in three successive voyages, and by explorations of Western Australia in 1821. These steps were followed by the foundation of a settlement on Melville Island, in the extreme north, which, however, was soon abandoned. In 1823 Lieutenant Oxley proceeded to Moreton Bay and Port Curtis, the first place 500 m., the other 690 m. north of Sydney, to choose the site of a new penal establishment. From a shipwrecked English sailor he met with, who had lived with the savages, he heard of the river Brisbane. About the same time, in the opposite direction, south-west of Sydney, a large extent of the interior was revealed. Messrs Hamilton Hume and Hovell set out from Lake George, crossed the Murrumbidgee, and, after following the river for a short distance, struck south, skirting the foothills of what are now known as the Australian Alps until they reached a fine river, which was called the Hume after the leader’s father. Crossing the Murray at Albury, the explorers, bearing to the south-west, skirted the western shore of Port Philip and reached the sea-coast near where the town of Geelong now stands. In 1827 and the two following years, Cunningham prosecuted instructive explorations on both sides of the Liverpool range, between the upper waters of the Hunter and those of the Peel and other tributaries of the Brisbane north of New South Wales. Some of his discoveries, including those of Pandora’s Pass and the Darling Downs, were of great practical utility.
By this time much had thus been done to obtain an acquaintance with the eastern parts of the Australian continent, although the problem of what could become of the large rivers flowing north-west and south-west into the interiorDarling.was still unsolved. With a view to determine this question, Governor Sir Ralph Darling, in the year 1828, sent out the expedition under Captain Charles Sturt, who, proceeding first to the marshes at the end of the Macquarie river, found his progress checked by the dense mass of reeds in that quarter. He therefore turned westward, and struck a large river, with many affluents, to which he gave the name of the Darling. This river, flowing from north-east to south-west, drains the marshes in which the Macquarie and other streams from the south appeared to be lost. The course of the Murrumbidgee, a deep and rapid river, was followed by the same eminent explorer in his second expedition in 1831 with a more satisfactory result. He travelled on this occasion nearly 2000 m., and discovered that both the Murrumbidgee, carrying with it the waters of the Lachlan morass, and likewise the Darling, from a more northerly region, finally joined another and larger river. This stream, the Murray, in the upper part of its course runs in a north-westerly direction, but afterwards turning southwards, almost at a right angle, expands into Lake Alexandrina on the south coast, about 60 m. south-east of the town of Adelaide, and finally enters the sea at Encounter Bay in E. long. 139°.
After gaining a practical solution of the problem of the destination of the westward-flowing rivers, Sir Thomas Mitchell, in 1833, led an expedition northward to the upper branches of the Darling; the party met with a sad disaster inMitchell.the death of Richard Cunningham, brother of the eminent botanist, who was murdered by the blacks near the Bogan river. The expedition reached the Darling on the 25th of May 1833, and after establishing a depot at Fort Bourke, Mitchell traced the Darling southwards for 300 m. until he was certain the river was identical with that reported by Sturt as joining the Murray about 142° E.
Meantime, from the new colony of Adelaide, South Australia, on the shores of Gulf St Vincent, a series of adventurous journeys to the north and to the west was begun by Mr Eyre, who explored a country very difficult of access. InEyre.1840 he performed a feat of extraordinary personal daring, travelling all the way along the barren sea-coast of the Great Australian Bight, from Spencer Gulf to King George Sound. Eyre also explored the interior north of the head of Spencer Gulf, where he was misled, however, by appearances to form an erroneous theory about the water-surfaces named Lake Torrens. It was left to the veteran explorer, Sturt, to achieve the arduous enterprise of penetrating from the Darling northward to the very centre of the continent. This was in 1845, the route lying for the most part over a stony desert, where the heat (reaching 131° Fahr.), with scorching winds, caused much suffering to the party. The most northerly point reached by Sturt on this occasion was about S. lat. 24° 25′.
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A military station having been fixed by the British government at Port Victoria, on the coast of Arnheim Land, for the protection of shipwrecked mariners on the north coast, it was thought desirable to find an overland routeLeichhardt.between this settlement and Moreton Bay, in what then was the northern portion of New South Wales, now called Queensland. This was the object of Dr Leichhardt’s expedition in 1844, which proceeded first along the banks of the Dawson and the Mackenzie, tributaries of the Fitzroy river, in Queensland. It thence passed farther north to the Burdekin, ascending to the source of that river, and turned westward across a table-land, from which there was an easy descent to the Gulf of Carpentaria. Skirting the low shores of this gulf, all the way round its upper half to the Roper, Leichhardt crossed Arnheim Land to the Alligator river, which he descended to the western shore of the peninsula, and arrived at Port Victoria, otherwise Port Essington, after a journey of 3000 m., performed within a year and three months. In 1847 Leichhardt undertook a much more formidable task, that of crossing the entire continent from east to west. His starting-point was on the Fitzroy Downs, north of the river Condamine, in Queensland, between the 26th and 27th degrees of S. latitude. But this eminent explorer had not proceeded far into the interior before he met his death, his last despatch dating from the Cogoon, 3rd of April 1848. In the same region, from 1845 to 1847, Sir Thomas Mitchell and Mr E.B. Kennedy explored the northern tributaries of the Darling, and a river in S. lat. 24°, named the Barcoo or Victoria, which flows to the south-west. This river was more thoroughly examined by Mr A.C. Gregory in 1858. Mr Kennedy lost his life in 1848, being killed by the natives while attempting to explore the peninsula of Cape York, from Rockingham Bay to Weymouth Bay.
Among the performances of less renown, but of much practical utility in surveying and opening new paths through the country, we may mention that of Captain Banister, showing the way across the southern part of Western Australia, from Swan river to King George Sound, and that of Messrs Robinson and G.H. Haydon in 1844, making good the route from Port Phillip to Gipps’ Land with loaded drays, through a dense tangled scrub, which had been described by Strzelecki as his worst obstacle. Again, in Western Australia there were the explorations of the Arrowsmith, the Murchison, the Gascoyne, and the Ashburton rivers, by Captain Grey, Mr Roe, Governor Fitzgerald, Mr R. Austin, and the brothers Gregory, whose discoveries have great importance from a geographical point of view.
These local researches, and the more comprehensive attempts of Leichhardt and Mitchell to solve the chief problems of Australian geography, must yield in importance to the grand achievement of Mr Stuart in 1862. The firstStuart.of his tours independently performed, in 1858 and 1859, were around the South Australian lakes, namely, Lake Torrens, Lake Eyre and Lake Gairdner. These waters had been erroneously taken for parts of one vast horse-shoe or sickle shaped lake, only some 20 m. broad, believed to encircle a large portion of the inland country, with drainage at one end by a marsh into Spencer Gulf. The mistake, shown in all the old maps of Australia, had originated in a curious optical illusion. When Mr Eyre viewed the country from Mount Deception in 1840, looking between Lake Torrens and the lake which now bears his own name, the refraction of light from the glittering crust of salt that covers a large space of stony or sandy ground produced an appearance of water. The error was discovered, after eighteen years, by the explorations of Mr Babbage and Major Warburton in 1858, while Mr Stuart, about the same time, gained a more complete knowledge of the same district.
A reward of £10,000 having been offered by the legislature of South Australia to the first man who should traverse the whole continent from south to north, starting from the city of Adelaide, Mr Stuart resolved to make the attempt. He started in March 1860, passing Lake Torrens and Lake Eyre, beyond which he found a pleasant, fertile country till he crossed the Macdonnell range of mountains, just under the line of the tropic of Capricorn. On the 23rd of April he reached a mountain in S. lat. nearly 22°, and E. long. nearly 134°, which is the most central marked point of the Australian continent, and has been named Central Mount Stuart. Mr Stuart did not finish his task on this occasion, on account of indisposition and other causes. But the 18th degree of latitude had been reached, where the watershed divided the rivers of the Gulf of Carpentaria from the Victoria river, flowing towards the north-west coast. He had also proved that the interior of Australia was not a stony desert, like the region visited by Sturt in 1845. On the first day of the next year, 1861, Mr Stuart again started for a second attempt to cross the continent, which occupied him eight months. He failed, however, to advance farther than one geographical degree north of the point reached in 1860, his progress being arrested by dense scrubs and the want of water.
Meanwhile, in the province of Victoria, by means of a fund subscribed among the colonists and a grant by the legislature, the ill-fated expedition of Messrs Burke and Wills was started. It made for the Barcoo (Cooper’s Creek),Burke and Wills.with a view to reach the Gulf of Carpentaria by a northerly course midway between Sturt’s track to the west and Leichhardt’s to the east. The leading men of the party were Mr Robert O’Hara Burke, an officer of police, and Mr William John Wills, of the Melbourne observatory. Leaving the main body of his party at Menindie on the Darling under a man named Wright, Burke, with seven men, five horses and sixteen camels, pushed on for Cooper’s Creek, the understanding being that Wright should follow him in easy stages to the depot proposed to be there established. Wright frittered away his time in the district beyond the Darling and did not attempt to follow the party to Cooper’s Creek, and Burke, tired of waiting, determined to push on. Accordingly, dividing his party, leaving at the depot four men and taking with him Wills and two men, King and Gray, with a horse and six camels, he left Cooper’s Creek on the 16th of December and crossed the desert traversed by Sturt fifteen years before. They got on in spite of great difficulties, past the McKinlay range of mountains, S. lat. 21° and 22°, and then reached the Flinders river, which flows into the head of the Gulf of Carpentaria. Here, without actually standing on the sea-beach of the northern shore, they met the tidal waters of the sea. On the 23rd of February 1861 they commenced the return journey, having in effect accomplished the feat of crossing the Australian continent. Gray, who had fallen ill, died on the 16th of April. Five days later, Burke, Wills and King had repassed the desert to the place on Cooper’s Creek (the Barcoo, S. lat. 27° 40′, E. long. 140° 30′), where they had left the depot, with the rest of the expedition. Here they experienced a cruel disappointment. The depot was abandoned; the men in charge had quitted the place the same day, believing that Burke and those with him were lost. The men who had thus abandoned the depot rejoined the main body of the expedition under Wright, who at length moved to Cooper’s Creek, and, incredible to relate, neglected to search for the missing explorers. Burke, Wills and King, when they found themselves so fearfully left alone and unprovided in the wilderness, wandered about in that district till near the end of June. They subsisted miserably on the bounty of some natives, and partly by feeding on the seeds of a plant called nardoo. At last both Wills and Burke died of starvation. King, the sole survivor, was saved by meeting the friendly blacks, and was found alive in September by Mr A.W. Howitt’s party, sent on purpose to find and relieve that of Burke.
Four other parties, besides Howitt’s, were sent out that year from different Australian provinces. Three of them, respectively commanded by Mr Walker, Mr Landsborough, and Mr Norman, sailed to the north, where the latter two landed on the shores of the Gulf of Carpentaria, while Mr Walker marched inland from Rockhampton. The fourth party, under Mr J. McKinlay, from Adelaide, made for the Barcoo by way of Lake Torrens. By these means, the unknown region of Mid Australia was simultaneously entered from the north, south, east and west, and important additions were made to geographical knowledge Landsborough crossed the entire continent from north to south.between February and June 1862; and McKinlay, from south to north, before the end of August in that year. The interior of New South Wales and Queensland, all that lies east of the 140th degree of longitude, was examined. The Barcoo or Cooper’s Creek and its tributary streams were traced from the Queensland mountains, holding a south-westerly course to Lake Eyre in South Australia; the Flinders, the Gilbert, the Gregory, and other northern rivers watering the country towards the Gulf of Carpentaria were also explored. These valuable additions to Australian geography were gained through humane efforts to relieve the lost explorers. The bodies of Burke and Wills were recovered and brought to Melbourne for a solemn public funeral, and a noble monument has been erected to their honour.
Mr Stuart, in 1862, made his third and final attempt to traverse the continent from Adelaide along a central line, which, inclining a little westward, reaches the north coast of Arnheim Land, opposite Melville Island. He started in January, and on the 7th of April reached the farthest northern point, near S. lat. 17°, where he had turned back in May of the preceding year. He then pushed on, through a very thick forest, with scarcely any water, till he came to the streams which supply the Roper, a river flowing into the western part of the Gulf of Carpentaria. Having crossed a table-land of sandstone which divides these streams from those running to the western shores of Arnheim Land, Mr Stuart, in the month of July, passed down what is called the Adelaide river of north Australia. Thus he came at length to stand on the verge of the Indian Ocean; “gazing upon it,” a writer has said, “with as much delight as Balboa, when he crossed the Isthmus of Darien from the Atlantic to the Pacific.” The line crossing Australia which was thus explored has since been occupied by the electric telegraph connecting Adelaide, Melbourne, Sydney, and other Australian cities with London.
A third part, at least, of the interior of the whole continent, between the central line of Stuart and the known parts of Western Australia, from about 120° to 134° E. long., an extent of half a million square miles, still remainedGosse.a blank in the map. But the two expeditions of 1873, conducted by William Christie Gosse (1842-1881), afterwards deputy surveyor-general for South Australia, and Colonel (then Major) Egerton Warburton, made a beginning in the exploration of thisterra incognitawest of the central telegraph route. That line of more than 1800 m., having its southern extremity at the head of Spencer Gulf, its northern at Port Darwin, in Arnheim Land, passes Central Mount Stuart, in the middle of the continent, S. lat. 22°, E. long. 134°. Mr Gosse, with men and horses provided by the South Australian government, started on the 21st of April from the telegraph station 50 m. south of Central Mount Stuart, to strike into Western Australia. He passed the Reynolds range and Lake Amadeus in that direction, but was compelled to turn south, where he found a tract of well-watered grassy land. A singular rock of conglomerate, 2 m. long, 1 m. wide, and 1100 ft. high, with a spring of water in its centre, struck his attention. The country was mostly poor and barren, sandy hillocks, with scanty growth of spinifex. Mr Gosse, having travelled above 600 m., and getting to 26° 32′ S. and 127° E., two degrees within the Western Australian boundary, was forced to return. Meantime a more successful attempt to reach theWarburton.western coast from the centre of Australia was made by Major Warburton, with thirty camels, provided by Mr (afterwards Sir) T. Elder, of South Australia. Leaving the telegraph line at Alice Springs (23° 40′ S., 133° 14′ E.), 1120 m. north of Adelaide city, Warburton succeeded in making his way to the De Grey river, Western Australia. Overland routes had now been found possible, though scarcely convenient for traffic, between all the widely separated Australian provinces. In northern Queensland, also, there were several explorations about this period, with results of some interest. That performed by Mr W. Hann, with Messrs Warner, Tate and Taylor, in 1873, related to the country north of the Kirchner range, watered by the Lynd, the Mitchell, the Walsh and the Palmer rivers, on the east side of the Gulf of Carpentaria. The coasting expedition of Mr G. Elphinstone Dalrymple, with Messrs Hill and Johnstone, finishing in December 1873, effected a valuable survey of the inlets and navigable rivers in the Cape York Peninsula.
Of the several attempts to cross Western Australia, even Major Warburton’s expedition, the most successful, had failed in the important particular of determining the nature of the country through which it passed. Major Warburton had virtually raced across from the Macdonnell range in South Australia to the headwaters of the Oakover river on the north-west coast, without allowing himself sufficient time to note the characteristics of the country. The next important expeditionForrest.was differently conducted. John (afterwards Sir John) Forrest was despatched by the Perth government with general instructions to obtain information regarding the immense tract of country out of which flow the rivers falling into the sea on the northern and western shores of Western Australia. Leaving Yewin, a small settlement about lat. 28° S., long. 116° E., Forrest travelled north-east to the Murchison river, and followed the course of that river to the Robinson ranges; thence his course lay generally eastward along the 26th parallel. Forrest and his party safely crossed the entire extent of Western Australia, and entering South Australia struck the overland telegraph line at Peake station, and, after resting, journeyed south to Adelaide. Forrest traversed seventeen degrees of desert in five months, a very wonderful achievement, more especially as he was able to give a full report of the country through which he passed. His report destroyed all hope that pastoral settlement would extend to the spinifex region; and the main object of subsequent explorers was to determine the extent of the desert in the direction of north and south. ErnestGiles.Giles made several attempts to cross the Central Australian Desert, but it was not until his third attempt that he was successful. His journey ranks almost with Forrest’s in the importance of its results and the success with which the appalling difficulties of the journey were overcome. Through the generosity of Sir Thomas Elder, of Adelaide, Giles’s expedition was equipped with camels. It started on the 23rd of May 1875 from Port Augusta. Working westerly along the line of the 30th parallel, Giles reached Perth in about five months. After resting in Perth for a short time, he commenced the return journey, which was made for the most part between the 24th and 25th parallels, and again successfully traversed the desert, reaching the overland telegraph line in about seven months. Giles’s journeys added greatly to our knowledge of the characteristics of Western and South Australia, and he was able to bear out the common opinion that the interior of Australia west of 132° E. long, is a sandy and waterless waste, entirely unfit for settlement.
The list of explorers since 1875 is a long one; but after Forrest’s and Giles’s expeditions the main object ceased to be the discovery of pastoral country: a new zest had been added to the cause of exploration, and most ofRecent explorers.the smaller expeditions concerned themselves with the search for gold. Amongst the more important explorations may be ranked those of Tietkins in 1889, of Lindsay in 1891, of Wells in 1896, of Hübbe in 1896, and of the Hon. David Carnegie in 1896-97. Lindsay’s expedition, which was fitted out by Sir Thomas Elder, the generous patron of Australian exploration, entered Western Australia about the 26th parallel south lat., on the line of route taken by Forrest in 1874. From this point the explorer worked in a south-westerly direction to Queen Victoria Springs, where he struck the track of Giles’s expedition of 1875. From the Springs the expedition went north-west and made a useful examination of the country lying between 119° and 115° meridians and between 26° and 28° S. lat. Wells’s expedition started from a base about 122° 20′ E. and 25° 54′ S., and worked northward to the Joanna Springs, situated on the tropic of Capricorn and near the 124th meridian. From the springs the journey was continued along the same meridian to the Fitzroy river. The country passed through was mostly of a forbidding character, except where the Kimberley district was entered, and the expedition suffered even more than theusual hardships. The establishment of the gold-fields, with their large population, caused great interest to be taken in the discovery of practicable stock routes, especially from South Australia in the east, and from Kimberley district in the north. Alive to the importance of the trade, the South Australian government despatched Hübbe from Oodnadatta to Coolgardie. He successfully accomplished his journey, but had to report that there was no practicable route for cattle between the two districts.
One of the most successful expeditions which traversed Western Australia was that led and equipped by the Hon. David Carnegie, which started in July 1896, and travelled north-easterly until it reached Alexander Spring; then turning northward, it traversed the country between Wells’s track of 1896 and the South Australian border. The expedition encountered very many hardships, but successfully reached Hall Creek in the Kimberley district. After a few months’ rest it started on the return journey, following Sturt Creek until its termination in Gregory’s Salt Sea, and then keeping parallel with the South Australian border as far as Lake Macdonald. Rounding that lake the expedition moved south-west and reached the settled districts in August 1897. The distance travelled was 5000 m., and the actual time employed was eight months. This expedition put an end to the hope, so long entertained, that it was possible to obtain a direct and practicable route for stock between Kimberley and Coolgardie gold-fields; and it also proved that, with the possible exception of small isolated patches, the desert traversed contained no auriferous country.
It may be said that exploration on a large scale is now at an end; there remain only the spaces, nowhere very extensive, between the tracks of the old explorers yet to be examined, and these are chiefly in the Northern Territory and in Western Australia north of the tropic of Capricorn. The search for gold and the quest for unoccupied pasturage daily diminish the extent of these areas.
3.Political History.
Of the six Australian states, New South Wales is the oldest. It was in 1788, eighteen years after Captain Cook explored the east coast, that Port Jackson was founded as a penal station for criminals from England; andEarly colonization.the settlement retained that character, more or less, during the subsequent fifty years, transportation being virtually suspended in 1839. The colony, however, from 1821 had made a fair start in free industrial progress. By this time, too, several of the other provinces had come into existence. Van Diemen’s Land, now called Tasmania, had been occupied as early as 1803. It was an auxiliary penal station under New South Wales till in 1825 it became a separate government. From this island, ten years later, parties crossed Bass Strait to Port Phillip, where a new settlement was shortly established, forming till 1851 a part of New South Wales, but now the state of Victoria. In 1827 and 1829, an English company endeavoured to plant a settlement at the Swan river, and this, added to a small military station established in 1825 at King George Sound, constituted Western Australia. On the shores of the Gulf St Vincent, again, from 1835 to 1837, South Australia was created by another joint-stock company, as an experiment in the Wakefield scheme of colonization. Such were the political component parts of British Australia up to 1839. The early history, therefore, of New South Wales is peculiar to itself. Unlike the other mainland provinces, it was at first held and used chiefly for the reception of British convicts. When that system was abolished, the social conditions of New South Wales, Victoria, and South Australia became more equal. Previous to the gold discoveries of 1851 they may be included, from 1839, in a general summary view.
The first British governors at Sydney, from 1788, ruled with despotic power. They were naval or military officers in command of the garrison, the convicts and the few free settlers. The duty was performed by such men as Captain Arthur Phillip, Captain Hunter, and others. In the twelve years’ rule of General Macquarie, closing with 1821, the colony made a substantial advance. By means of bond labour roads and bridges wereRise of New South Wales.constructed, and a route opened into the interior beyond the Blue Mountains. A population of 30,000, three-fourths of them convicts, formed the infant commonwealth, whose attention was soon directed to the profitable trade of rearing fine wool sheep, first commenced by Captain John McArthur in 1803. During the next ten years, 1821-1831, Sir Thomas Brisbane and Sir Ralph Darling, two generals of the army, being successively governors, the colony increased, and eventually succeeded in obtaining the advantages of a representative institution, by means of a legislative council. Then came General Sir Richard Bourke, whose wise and liberal administration proved most beneficial. New South Wales became prosperous and attractive to emigrants with capital. Its enterprising ambition was encouraged by taking fresh country north and south. In the latter direction, explored by Mitchell in 1834 and 1836, lay Australia Felix, now Victoria, including the well-watered, thickly-wooded country of Gipps’ Land.
This district, then called Port Phillip, in the time of Governor Sir George Gipps, 1838-1846, was growing fast into a position claiming independence. Melbourne, which began with a few huts on the banks of the Yarra-Yarra in 1835,Growth of Victoria.was in 1840 a busy town of 6000 inhabitants, the population of the whole district, with the towns of Geelong and Portland, reaching 12,850; while its import trade amounted to £204,000, and its exports to £138,000. Such was the growth of infant Victoria in five years; that of Adelaide or South Australia, in the same period, was nearly equal to it. At Melbourne there was a deputy governor, Mr Latrobe, under Sir George-Gipps at Sydney. Adelaide had its own governors, first Captain Hindmarsh, next Colonel Gawler, and then Captain George Grey. Western Australia progressed but slowly, with less than 4000 inhabitants altogether, under Governors Stirling and Hutt.
The general advancement of Australia, to the era of the gold-mining, had been satisfactory, in spite of a severe commercial crisis, from 1841 to 1843, caused by extravagant land speculations and inflated prices. Victoria producedDiscovery of gold.already more wool than New South Wales, the aggregate produce of Australia in 1852 being 45,000,000 ℔; and South Australia, between 1842 and this date, had opened most valuable mines of copper. The population of New South Wales in 1851 was 190,000; that of Victoria, 77,000; and that of South Australia about the same. At Summerhill Creek, 20 m. north of Bathurst, in the Macquarie plains, gold was discovered, in February 1851, by Mr E. Hargraves, a gold-miner from California. The intelligence was made known in April or May; and then began a rush of thousands,—men leaving their former employments in the bush or in the towns to search for the ore so greatly coveted in all ages. In August it was found at Andersen’s Creek, near Melbourne; a few weeks later the great Ballarat gold-field, 80 m. west of that city, was opened; and after that, Bendigo to the north. Not only in these lucky provinces, New South Wales and Victoria, where the auriferous deposits were revealed, but in every British colony of Australasia, all ordinary industry was left for the one exciting pursuit. The copper mines of South Australia were for the time deserted, while Tasmania and New Zealand lost many inhabitants, who emigrated to the more promising country. The disturbance of social, industrial and commercial affairs, during the first two or three years of the gold era, was very great. Immigrants from Europe, and to some extent from North America and China, poured into Melbourne, where the arrivals in 1852 averaged 2000 persons in a week. The population of Victoria was doubled in the first twelvemonth of the gold fever, and the value of imports and exports was multiplied tenfold between 1851 and 1853. The colony of Victoria was constituted a separate province in July 1851, Mr Latrobe being appointed governor, followed by Sir Charles Hotham and Sir Henry Barkly in succession.
The separation of the northern part of eastern Australia,under the name of Queensland, from the original province of New South Wales, took place in 1859. At that time the district contained about 25,000 inhabitants; and in the first six yearsResponsible government.its population was quadrupled and its trade trebled. At the beginning of 1860, when the excitement of the gold discoveries was wearing off, five of the states had received from the home government the boon of responsible government, and were in a position to work out the problem of their position without external interference; it was not, however, until 1890 that Western Australia was placed in a similar position. After the establishment of responsible government the main questions at issue were the secular as opposed to the religious system of public instruction, protection as opposed to a revenue tariff, vote by ballot, adult suffrage, abolition of transportation and assignment of convicts, and free selection of lands before survey; these, and indeed all the great questions upon which the country was divided, were settled within twenty years of the granting of self-government.6With the disposal of these important problems, politics in Australia became a struggle for office between men whose political principles were very much alike, and the tenure of power enjoyed by the various governments did not depend upon the principles of administration so much as upon the personal fitness of the head of the ministry, and the acceptability of his ministry to the members of the more popular branch of the legislature.
The two most striking political events in the modern history of Australia, as a whole, apart from the readiness it has shown to remain a part of the British empire (q.v.), and to develop along Imperial lines, are the advent of theGeneral Australian problems.Labour party and the establishment of federation. As regards the last mentioned it may be said that it was accomplished from within, there being no real external necessity for the union of the states. Leading politicians have in all the states felt the cramping effects of mere domestic legislation, albeit on the proper direction of such legislation depends the well-being of the people; and to this sense of the limitations of local politics was due, as much as to anything else, the movement towards federation.
Before coming, however, to the history of federation, and the evolution of the Labour party, we must refer briefly to some other questions which have been of general interest in Australia. Taking the states as a whole, agrarianAgrarian legislation.legislation has been the most important subject that has engrossed the attention of their parliaments, and every state has been more or less engaged in tinkering with its land laws. The main object of all such legislation is to secure the residence of the owners on the land. The object of settlers, however, in a great many, perhaps in the majority of instances, is to dispose of their holdings as soon as possible after the requirements of the law have been complied with, and to avoid permanent settlement. This has greatly facilitated the formation of large estates devoted chiefly to grazing purposes, contrary to the policy of the legislature, which has everywhere sought to encourage tillage, or tillage joined to stock-rearing, and to discourage large holdings. The importance of the land question is so great that it is hardly an exaggeration to say that it is usual for every parliament of Australia to have before it a proposal to alter or amend its land laws. Since 1870 there have been five radical changes made in New South Wales. In Victoria the law has been altered five times, and in Queensland and South Australia seven times.
The prevention or regulation of the immigration of coloured races has also claimed a great share of parliamentary attention. The agitation against the influx of Chinese commenced very soon after the gold discoveries, the EuropeanImmigration question.miners objecting strongly to the presence of these aliens upon the diggings. The allegations made concerning the Chinese really amounted to a charge of undue industry. The Chinese were hard-working and had the usual fortune attending those who work hard. They spent little on drink or with the storekeepers, and were, therefore, by no means popular. As early as 1860 there had been disturbances of a serious character, and the Chinese were chased off the goldfields of New South Wales, serious riots occurring at Lambing Flat, on the Burrangong goldfield. The Chinese difficulty, so far as the mining population was concerned, was solved by the exhaustion of the extensive alluvial deposits; the miners’ prejudice against the race, however, still exists, though they are no longer serious competitors, and the laws of some of the states forbid any Chinese to engage in mining without the express authority in writing of the minister of mines. The nearness of China to Australia has always appeared to the Australian democracy as a menace to the integrity of the white settlements; and at the many conferences of representatives from the various states, called to discuss matters of general concern, the Chinese question has always held a prominent place, but the absence of any federal authority had made common action difficult. In 1888 the last important conference on the Chinese question was held in Sydney and attended by delegates from all the states. Previously to the meeting of the conference there had been a great deal of discussion in regard to the influx of Chinese, and such influx was on all sides agreed to be a growing danger. The conference, therefore, merely expressed the public sentiment when it resolved that, although it was not advisable to prohibit altogether this class of immigration, it was necessary in the public interests that the number of Chinese privileged to land should be so limited as to prevent the people of that race from ever becoming an important element in the community. In conformity with this determination the various state legislatures enacted new laws or amended the existing laws to cope with the difficulty; these remained until they were in effect superseded by Commonwealth legislation. The objection to admitting immigrants was not only to the Chinese, but extended to all Asiatics; but as a large proportion of the persons whose entrance into the colonies it was desired to stop were British subjects, and the Imperial government refused to sanction any measure directly prohibiting in plain terms the movement of British subjects from one part of the empire to another, resort was made to indirect legislation; this was the more advisable, as the rise of the Japanese power in the East and the alliance of that country with Great Britain rendered it necessary to pay attention to the susceptibilities of a powerful nation whose subjects might be affected by restrictive laws. Eventually the difficulty was overcome by the device of an educational test based on the provisions of an act in operation in Natal. It was provided that a person was to be prohibited from landing in Australia who failed to write in any prescribed language fifty words dictated to him by the commonwealth officer supervising immigration. The efficacy of this legislation is in its administration, the language in which coloured aliens are usually tested being European. The agitation against the Chinese covered a space of over fifty years, a long period in the history of a young country, and was promoted and kept alive almost entirely by the trades unions, and the restriction acts were the first legislative triumph of the Labour party, albeit that party was not at the time directly represented in parliament.
One of the most notable events in the modern history of Australia occurred shortly after the great strike of 1890. This was what is ordinarily termed the bank crisis of 1893. Although this crisis followed on the great strike, the crisis ofBank crisis of 1893.two things had no real connexion, the crisis being the natural result of events long anterior to 1890. The effects of the crisis were mainly felt in the three eastern states, Queensland, New South Wales and Victoria, Tasmania and South Australia being affected chiefly by reason of the fact of their intimate financial connexion with the eastern states. The approach of the crisis was heralded by many signs. Deposits were shifted from bank to bank, there were small runs on several of the savings banks guaranteed by the government, mortgagees required additional security from their debtors, bankruptciesbecame frequent, and some of the banks began to accumulate gold against the evil day. The building societies and financial institutions in receipt of deposits, or so many of them as were on an unsound footing, failed at an early period of the depression, so also did the weaker banks. There was distrust in the minds of the depositors, especially those whose holdings were small, and most of the banks were, at a very early period, subjected to the strain of repaying a large proportion of their deposits as they fell due. For a time the money so withdrawn was hoarded, but after a while it found its way back again into the banks. The crisis was by no means a sudden crash, and even when the failures began to take place they were spread over a period of sixteen weeks.
The first noticeable effect of the crisis was a great scarcity of employment. Much capital was locked up in the failed banks, and was therefore not available for distribution amongst wage-earners. Wages fell precipitately, as also did rents. There was an almost entire cessation of building, and a large number of houses in the chief cities remained untenanted, the occupants moving to lodgings and more than one family living in a single house. Credit became greatly restricted, and all descriptions of speculative enterprise came to an end. The consuming power of the population was greatly diminished, and in the year following the crisis the imports into Australia from abroad diminished by four and three-quarter millions. In fact, everywhere the demand for goods, especially of those for domestic consumption, fell away; and there was a reduction in the average number of persons employed in the manufacturing industries to the extent of more than 20%. The lack of employment in factories naturally affected the coal mining industry, and indeed every industry in the states, except those connected with the export trade, was severely affected. During the crisis banks having a paid-up capital and reserves of £5,000,000 and deposits of £53,000,000 closed their doors. Most of these, however, reopened for business before many weeks. The crisis was felt in the large cities more keenly than in the country districts, and in Melbourne more severely than in any other capital. The change of fortune proved disastrous to many families, previously to all appearances in opulent circumstances, but by all classes alike their reverses were borne with the greatest bravery. In its ultimate effects the crisis was by no means evil. Its true meaning was not lost upon a business community that had had twenty years of almost unchecked prosperity. It required the chastening of adversity to teach it a salutary lesson, and a few years after, when the first effects of the crisis had passed away, business was on a much sounder footing than had been the case for very many years. One of the first results was to put trade on a sound basis and to abolish most of the abuses of the credit system, but the most striking effect of the crisis was the attention which was almost immediately directed to productive pursuits. Agriculture everywhere expanded, the mining industry revived, and, if it had not been for the low prices of staple products, the visible effects of the crisis would have passed away within a very few years.
Another matter which deserves attention was the great drought which culminated in the year 1902. For some years previously the pastoral industry had been declining and the number of sheep and cattle in Australia hadDrought of 1902.greatly diminished, but the year 1902 was one of veritable drought. The failure of the crops was almost universal and large numbers of sheep and cattle perished for want of food. The truth is, pastoralists for the most part carried on their industry trusting very greatly to luck, not making any special provisions against the vicissitudes of the seasons. Enormous quantities of natural hay were allowed every year to rot or be destroyed by bush fires, and the bountiful provision made by nature to carry them over the seasons of dry weather absolutely neglected; so that when the destructive season of 1902 fell upon them, over a large area of territory there was no food for the stock. The year 1903 proved most bountiful, and in a few years all trace of the disastrous drought of 1902 passed away. But beyond this the pastoralist learnt most effectually the lesson that, in a country like Australia, provision must be made for the occasional season when the rainfall is entirely inadequate to the wants of the farmer and the pastoralist.
The question of federation was not lost sight of by the framers of the original constitution which was bestowed upon New South Wales. In the report of the committee of the legislative council appointed in 1852 to prepare a constitutionFederation.for that colony, the following passage occurs:—“One of the most prominent legislative measures required by the colony, and the colonies of the Australian group generally, is the establishment at once of a general assembly, to make laws in relation to those intercolonial questions that have arisen or may hereafter arise among them. The questions which would claim the exercise of such a jurisdiction appear to be (1) intercolonial tariffs and the coasting trade; (2) railways, roads, canals, and other such works running through any two of the colonies; (3) beacons and lighthouses on the coast; (4) intercolonial gold regulations; (5) postage between the said colonies; (6) a general court of appeal from the courts of such colonies; (7) a power to legislate on all other subjects which may be submitted to them by addresses from the legislative councils and assemblies of the colonies, and to appropriate to any of the above-mentioned objects the necessary sums of money, to be raised by a percentage on the revenues of all the colonies interested.” This wise recommendation received very scant attention, and it was not until the necessities of the colonies forced them to it that an attempt was made to do what the framers of the original constitution suggested. Federation at no time actually dropped out of sight, but it was not until thirty-five years later that any practical steps were taken towards its accomplishment. Meanwhile a sort of makeshift was devised, and the Imperial parliament passed a measure permitting the formation of a federal council, to which any colony that felt inclined to join could send delegates. Of the seven colonies New South Wales and New Zealand stood aloof from the council, and from the beginning it was therefore shorn of a large share of the prestige that would have attached to a body speaking and acting on behalf of a united Australia. The council had also a fatal defect in its constitution. It was merely a deliberative body, having no executive functions and possessing no control of funds or other means to put its legislation in force. Its existence was well-nigh forgotten by the people of Australia until the occurrence of its biennial meetings, and even then but slight interest was taken in its proceedings. The council held eight meetings, at which many matters of intercolonial interest were discussed. The last occasion of its being called together was in 1899, when the council met in Melbourne. In 1889 an important step towards federation was taken by Sir Henry Parkes. The occasion was the report of Major-General Edwards on the defences of Australia, and Sir Henry addressed the other premiers on the desirability of a federal union for purposes of defence. The immediate result was a conference at Parliament House, Melbourne, of representatives from each of the seven colonies. This conference adopted an address to the queen expressing its loyalty and attachment, and submitting certain resolutions which affirmed the desirability of an early union, under the crown, of the Australasian colonies, on principles just to all, and provided that the remoter Australasian colonies should be entitled to admission upon terms to be afterwards agreed upon, and that steps should be taken for the appointment of delegates to a national Australasian convention, to consider and report upon an adequate scheme for a federal convention. In accordance with the understanding arrived at, the various Australasian parliaments appointed delegates to attend a national convention to be held in Sydney, and on the 2nd March 1891 the convention held its first meeting. Sir Henry Parkes was elected president, and he moved a series of resolutions embodying the principles necessary to establish, on an enduring foundation, the structure of a federal government. These resolutions were slightly altered by the conference, and were adopted in the following form:—