sible Government and amidst the sparsely populated lands of West ern Australia, where alone nominated emigrants are sent out free of cost. Yet even there the general labourer in town receives 5s. to 7s. per diem, carpenters and masons from 8s. to 10s., farmlabourers and ploughmen in the country 15s. per week with board and lodging.

The responsible Governments of New South Wales and the other Australian colonies to a certain extent, and that of South Australia to a very great extent, have been forced to become, through the action of manhood suffrage, a part, and a most important and necessary part, of the machinery of the trades-unions. It is to the Government that the unions look for supplies to pay their working men to fight against the employers of labour. The Government at present, on account of their loans, have practically nearly unlimited power of capital to fight against the employers of labour, who have only their own private means to back them up. The result must be, either the withdrawal of private capital to places where it can be employed at a profit, or to so raise the import duties that capital can earn its fair profit as well as labour. This is what has actually occurred in Victoria, where, owing to its great natural resources, both agricultural and pastoral, and to the heavy import duties levied in that colony, a few manufactories are springing up which are able to a certain extent to supply the local wants of the people. The finances of Victoria are also in a better state than most of the other colonies. The tradesunions, and through them the Parliament of Victoria, have per

working classes better in the longrun, even at a slight apparent sacrifice, to do a little for the employer of labour, by levying heavy protective duties on manufactured goods, rather than, as in New South Wales, to act always in opposition to his interests, under the mistaken notion that what is good for the capitalist must of necessity be bad for the labourer. New South Wales, with its coals and its minerals, is really a richer country than Victoria, with all its gold, yet it does not prosper as a country; while Victoria, which has done something for the capitalists and employers of labour, is becoming, in spite of the same defects in its constitution, more prosperous every day. The Victorian

working man looks as far as an immediate future, while the working man of New South Wales looks only to the present.

So great is the unrealised wealth of the Australian colonies, so great is also their realised wealth, that if they are only governed by intelligent men, who, even while governing for the benefit of but one class, whatever that class may be, are yet not actuated by a shortsighted and narrow policy, they must advance.

But if the gov

ernment is given up to those who do not see beyond the immediate present, is there any known land rich enough to prosper?

There is one class in England, at present suffering from the bad times, who at this moment might with great advantage emigrate to Australia, whose prospects would be immensely improved by doing so, and who of all the classes would be the most likely to succeed-namely, the tenant farmer, who sees his little capital day by day decreasing at home. A prac

tical farmer with two or three sons, with a small capital of from £500 to £1500, who has been bred up all his life on a farm, and who has had that practical education in his business which is instilled by daily association-such a man would in Australia be bound to succeed to a certain extent. He would most probably have the satisfaction, as he gets on in life, of seeing his sons started prosperously, either as managers of stations, or perhaps as the owners of stations themselves. There are ups and downs for every one in this world, but there is more chance of "ups" for people of this class than the reverse. It is from this class that most of the rich squatters have come. Their fathers originally emigrated to the country, and they have got their experience at a cheap rate-an experience that is even more valuable in Australia than in most parts of the world. A man like this knows the value of the land, which few of the new arrivals, and of those who have even lived in the colony, really do, although they think so. He will, if he is a prudent man, have saved a little nestegg, and will probably clear, or partially clear, some new land, which he will eventually sell for 100 to 150 per cent more than it has cost him altogether. He will gradually go on at this till he has rolled up for himself one of those immense fortunes, in the same manner as most of the rich squatters have made theirs. It is not the young gentleman who comes out to Australia with capital who usually succeeds. It is the son or the grandson of the small man who usually eats up the bigger man. In Western Australia this has occurred to a very large extent. The sons and grandsons of the men who settled there originally

have taken the place of the sons and grandsons of their servants. The fathers of those who are now servants were originally masters, and the descendants of the masters are now servants. The fathers who send out their sons from England with £5000 or £6000 capital are the men who in reality make the fortune of Australia's richest sons. Better would it have been for these same youths' fortunes, in most cases, if they had been kept at home. They go out there having little experience of farming, probably having been educated at one of our large public schools, and brought up in a society where they have had no experience of what hard work really is. How can they succeed, even if they are hard-working and industrious?

In most cases they buy a station for which they pay too much, or even if they have the good fortune to obtain one at a fair price, they buy too big a property in proportion to their resources. Instead of buying a station with half the amount of their capital, and investing the other half, they buy a property which swallows up nearly the whole.

We will allow that the station is prosperous for the first two or three years. There are good seasons, &c., and they probably reinvest their profits in their own station, or enlarge it in order that more may be made out of it, even if they do not increase their personal expenditure. Then bad seasons come, there are droughts or other misfortunes, capital is wanted to carry on the necessary expenses of the station, and they have no funds to fall back upon. They borrow from the banks at 9 or 10 per cent these banks which in the colonies are little better than huge pawnbroking establishments. Sooner or

later, when they are once in the hands of the banks, their end is sure to come. The interest due to the banks swallows up the profits they derive from the station. There may be good seasons again, but in few cases will they probably be good enough to enable the borrower to totally clear off a debt backed up by such heavy interest. Even if they manage to pay it back, bad seasons will return, and unless in the meantime experience has shown them the necessity of parting with a portion of the station, even at a considerable loss, in order to give them a certain amount of ready capital to fall back upon, they will again be forced to have recourse to the banks, and a succession of bad seasons coming on, these will foreclose, while the depression caused by the droughts is probably at its worst. The station will then be sold at an enormous loss, most probably to one of those large squatters referred to before, who will hang on to it till such time as good seasons return, when he will resell it to another of these small capitalists at a large profit. The original proprietors will become bankrupt, and have to start afresh in the world. This is the history of many a young man who goes out to the colonies with his few thousand pounds. These small capitalists hardly ever invest their money in a colony during a depression, but generally in times of prosperity, when there has been a succession of good seasons, and when their imaginations have been dazzled by hearing of the fortunes made. Usually they buy at a fictitious price, calculated on the few preceding prosperous years. In Queensland this occurs oftenest, because when prosperity comes there in the shape

of rain, enormous profits are to be made, but where also enormous losses are suffered in bad times. Usually in Queensland the property is not freehold, but leased from the Government, the price, when passing from hand to hand, being generally calculated at so much per head of the stock at the station. This stock of course, in good seasons, increases to a very large extent, but the losses are frequently quite as great. A friend of mine bought a property just before the last great droughts, and lost half his capital invested in the station in a few years, his stock dying for want of water. In the other Australian colonies neither the profits of stations nor the losses are usually so great. Of course a man may, although a fresh arrival, make a certain amount, either through luck or owing to naturally good abilities and shrewdness; but such a one, with a small capital, will probably make more with it at home than in Australia, as here he would have better means of knowing what he is about. In England he has the advantage of the experience and advice of friends. He is not in the position of a stranger coming in and filching from the older residents some of the profits which they think ought to be theirs alone.

The small capitalist, on arriving in Australia, is looked upon by the old squatters somewhat in the light of a pigeon to be plucked. If they found that nothing is to be made out of him, they would do all in their power to hinder his getting true information about the value of the property he is looking for, fearing that, as an outsider, he might spoil their market and lessen their profits by sharing them.

The colonial squatter certainly encourages the small capitalist to come out, knowing that the stranger will have to buy his experience, and their experience is not to be bought at too cheap a rate.

They will also, in their simple hearty manner, do everything to assist these young men to buy stations from themselves at a price calculated on the inexperience of the buyer. The colonial squatter certainly, as a general rule, welcomes the stranger (with capital), and takes him in in one sense. But it is not to be supposed that his moral principles will admit of his doing things by halves, for it is to be feared, unless he can take the stranger in, his welcome will be problematical.

In conclusion, there can be little

doubt that, owing to the depreciation in the value of land in England for agricultural purposes, were a man able to buy and farm his own land, he could hold his own in fair competition against foreigners-supposing that transfers of land were made simpler and easier than at present, and if instead of the heavy burdens being placed on home produce alone by the enormous rates and taxes on the land on which it is grown, taxes were placed in equal proportions as well on foreign as on our own produce. Under the above conditions, would our small capitalists, seeking investments in land on which to settle, be under the necessity of leaving the mother country in order to ruin themselves on distant shores?