Australia, New Zealand and some islands of the South seas

by Frank G. Carpenter

Half the world is kept warm with wool from the flocks of sheep pastured on tens of thousands of Australia’s acres. She produces some of the best wool on earth, and exports more than any other country.

Fifty years ago Brisbane was a village, and before that a British convict colony. To-day it is the fourth city in size in the Commonwealth, and the capital of the progressive state of Queensland.

Brisbane is cut in two by the Brisbane River, a wide stream navigated by ocean vessels, which come here for cargoes of frozen beef, wool, and grain.

When the United States was an infant among the independent nations of the earth, the history of Australia began. And just here the story of the “lonely continent” is linked with our own. There were a number of persons in the American colonies who remained loyal to the King throughout the Revolutionary War. When independence was won they found this country an uncomfortable place in which to stay. So it was planned by the British to make Australia a new home for the American “Loyalists.” This scheme failed, but another took its place. In colonial days the British had used America as a dumping place for undesirable citizens, especially political prisoners, and had sent them across the Atlantic at the rate of one thousand a year. Now that this human riffraff could no longer be shipped to us it was decided to transport them to Australia. Accordingly, in 1788 a thousand convicts were landed at Sydney Cove, and this was the beginning of the British occupation of the great South Land.

One hundred and thirteen years after that initial settlement there came into being the Commonwealth of Australia. In the birth year of the present century, the half dozen different Australian colonies, some as widely separated as any parts of our own country, became a federated union of the six states of Queensland, Victoria, New South Wales, South Australia, West Australia, and Tasmania. Before this these states had quarrelled frequently over matters of trade and internal development, and each had gone its way without regard for its neighbours. With federation, the tariff barriers between them were removed, common policies were agreed upon, and all joined hands in the determination to work together to create a new nation of white men within the British Empire.

Besides the six states, there are the Northern Territory, the Federal Territory, and the territories of Papua and New Guinea. The Northern Territory is the tropical area of some half a million square miles ceded by the state of South Australia to the central government. The Federal Territory corresponds nearly to our District of Columbia; for it is the nine hundred and forty square miles set aside for Canberra, the new capital of the Commonwealth. During the erection of the necessary buildings at Canberra, the capital remains at Melbourne. The territory of Papua, or British New Guinea, is the southeastern part of the island of New Guinea and is administered by officials nominated by the Governor-General of Australia. The Territory of New Guinea consists of those lands formerly embraced in German New Guinea, which Australia governs under a mandate from the League of Nations.

In many ways the constitution of the Commonwealth is like ours. Each of the states has its separate government, with great latitude in the management of its own affairs. The British Crown appoints a Governor-General for the whole Commonwealth, but his authority is merely nominal and the real executive power is in the hands of the Premier of Australia and his nine ministers. The Prime Minister is the leader of the majority of the Federal Parliament of which he and his cabinet must be members.

Parliament consists of a Senate and a House, organized much like our own Congress. The Senators are elected for six years and the representatives for three, but under certain conditions the House may be dissolved by the Governor-General before the three-year term is up. There are seventy-six representatives elected in proportion to population, and thirty-six senators, six from each state. Senators and representatives get the same salaries, each receiving five thousand dollars a year. It is provided that no member of Parliament can hold office if he has been bankrupt and failed to pay his debts, and if he takes benefit, whether by assignment or otherwise, of any bankruptcy law during his term of office his seat will at once become vacant. He cannot have any interest in any company trading with the government, nor can he take pay for other services rendered to the government. The state governments are organized like that of the Commonwealth, each having its premier, who is the leader of the majority in the state Parliament.