New South Wales still remains a mainly pastoral country, though here too considerable gold-fields have been found. After throwing off its southern districts to form the colony of Victoria, it ceded its northern territory to form the colony of Queensland (1859). The semi-tropical climate of this last province differentiates it from the rest of Australia. The great heat makes European labour difficult during the greater part of the year.
South Australia.—Western Australia.—Tasmania.
South Australia, settled in 1836, is mainly an agricultural country with some copper-mines. Western Australia, originating in a convict settlement in 1829, has lagged behind the rest of the sister colonies for want of any of the natural advantages which attract immigrants, but the tardy discovery of gold in 1892 may suffice at last to draw thither the much-needed population. Tasmania, originating, like Western Australia, in a penal colony, has developed into a small island community of steady prosperity.
New Zealand.—The Maori war.
Far to the east of Australia lie the twin islands of New Zealand, first explored by Captain Cook in 1773, but not planted with English colonists till 1839. Unlike the aborigines of Australia, the lowest and feeblest savages in the world, the natives of New Zealand were a fierce and clever race of cannibals, named Maoris. They bitterly resented the settlement of their islands, and raised two considerable wars, for the second of which (1861-66) British troops had to be brought to this remote colony, and had hard work to expel the Maoris from their pahs, or stockades. After their defeat they quieted down, and are now slowly dying out before the progress of civilization, which seems fatal to them, though they are a vigorous and intelligent race. New Zealand more resembles Great Britain in climate and situation than does any other of our colonies, and has enjoyed a long career of prosperity, somewhat checked of late by a tendency to a rash extension of the public debt.
The Cape Colony.—The Boers.
Passing westward across the Indian Ocean, we come to the second great group of English colonies, those of South Africa. The old Dutch dominion of the Cape of Good Hope was conquered by the British in 1806, and secured to us by the treaty of Vienna in 1815. It reached only as far as the Orange River, and was thinly settled by Dutch farmers, or Boers, scattered among a population of Kaffirs, whom they had in many cases reduced to slavery.
Natal.—The Orange Free State and the Transvaal.
When English emigration was directed to the Cape, the Boers resented the intrusion of the foreigner, and many of them trekked, i.e. migrated, into the wilderness to conquer new homes among the Kaffirs. But the British government followed them, and annexed their first settlement in Natal (1843). They then moved inland, and finally established (1852-54) the two republics of the Orange Free State and the Transvaal, which still remain, though each of them was for a short time under British control.