Australasian Democracy

The following pages have been written from the point of view of the year 1896, the greater part of which I spent in Australia. During the earlier months of the present year I wa...

The Government appear to have made several {13} grave mistakes of omission and commission in the formation of the settlements. They should have caused a survey of the Murray lan...

These proposals are warmly supported by the Labour Party. They advocate elective Ministries on the ground that the people would obtain greater control over the Executive, that s...

The next important step was the appointment, early in 1895, of a Royal Commission to inquire into the Civil Service, which reported that the Act of 1884, under which a Civil Ser...

The necessity for some form of decentralisation has been recognised, and partially acted on, by {59} successive Ministries since 1877, when a Royal Commission was appointed to i...

The complaints of the Labour Party against the Government were directed mainly to their failure to amend the electoral laws or to pass humanitarian legislation, and to the strin...

It thus appears that land is taxed, on an average, at 49 per cent. of its actual value inclusive of improvements in boroughs, and at 67-1/2 per cent. in counties; {91} but it mu...

The general question of settlement has, during the last few years, been connected closely with that of the unemployed. In New Zealand, as in several of the Australian Provinces,...

The Victorian Legislative Council is, from the democratic point of view, the most objectionable of all the Australasian Upper Houses. In Queensland, New South Wales, and New Zea...

Their recommendations were embodied in a {137} measure introduced in 1895 and passed in the following session, but limited in its operation, by the action of the Council, to a p...

The Act of 1893 also provided for the establishment of Labour Colonies. The movement in this direction originated with a few people at Melbourne, who saw the futility of periodi...

It must be admitted that Sir John Forrest and his colleagues have had matters entirely in their favour. {167} The credit of the Province has steadily improved, in view of its mi...

I do not propose, in the present chapter, to discuss the hackneyed arguments for and against female suffrage, but to indicate the progress of the movement in the several Provinc...

The second poll was taken at the end of 1896 and resulted in the failure to carry either prohibition or reduction in any district. The figures were as follows: continuation, 139...

The next phase in the movement originated in Victoria upon the initiative of Mr. (now Sir Charles) Gavan Duffy, who, in 1857, induced the Legislative Assembly to appoint a commi...

"The Convention shall be charged with the duty of framing for Australasia a Federal Constitution under the Crown in the form of a Bill for enactment by the Imperial Parliament.

The enormous immigration of the fifties, due to the great discoveries of gold in Victoria and New South Wales, has caused Australia to become one of the most democratic countrie...

In 1895 the average amount of assurance per head of the population in Australasia was L20, the average sum assured per policy L285, and the average number of policies per 1,000...

Before leaving this portion of the subject, I must mention that other proposals affecting the form of Government of the Provinces have been discussed in Parliament and are likel...

(5) A large proportion of the workmen of Australasia are convinced believers in Protection in the widest sense of the word. As far as their opinion can be ascertained from the r...

The following morning I looked out upon a sandy track which represents the main street of Coolgardie. It was already a scene of some animation; camels, driven by Afghans, were c...

Kanakas: Sugar cultivation in Queensland: Importation of Kanakas, question as to necessity of, 66 Number employed in, 64 Protection of, 63 Re-engaging after expiration of contra...

"'Paddy's Woman and Other Stories' by Humphrey James; a volume written in the familiar diction of the Ulster people themselves, with perfect realism and very remarkable ability....