nation cannot be called "independent" if it has to cry out to another for supplies of necessaries; that true national existence is first attained when the country becomes capable of supplying to its own citizens those goods without which they cannot exist in the state of comfort which they have already reached. Poli. tical is apt to follow upon commercial dependency, they say.

The question of Protection is bound up with the wider one of whether we are to love our fellow-subjects, our race, or the world at large; whether we are to pursue our country's good at the expense of other nations? There is a growing belief in England, that the noblest philosophy is to deny the existence of the moral right to benefit ourselves by harming others; that love of mankind must in time replace love of race as that has in part replaced narrow patriotism and love of self. It would seem that our Free Trade system lends itself better to these wide modern sympathies than does Protection. On the other hand, it may be argued that, if every State consults the good of its own citizens, we shall, by the action of all nations, obtain the desired happiness of the whole world, and this with rapidity, from the reason that every country understands its own interests better than it does those of its neighbour. As a rule, the colonists hold that they should not protect themselves against the sister-colonies, but only against the outer world; and while I was in Melbourne, an arrangement was made with respect to the border customs between Victoria and New South Wales; but this is at present the only step that has been taken towards inter-colonial Free Trade.

It is passing strange that Victoria should be noted for the eagerness with which her people seek protection. Possessed of little coal, they appear to be attempting artificially to create an industry which, owing to this sad lack of fuel, must languish from the moment that it is let alone. Sydney coal sells in Melbourne at thirty shillings a ton; at the pit's mouth at Newcastle, New South Wales, it fetches only seven or eight shillings. With regard, however, to the making-up of native produce, the question in the case of Victoria is merely this: Is it cheaper to carry the wool to the coal, and then the woollen goods back again, than to carry the coal to the wool? and as long as Victoria can continue to export wheat, so that the coal-ships

may not want freight, wool manufactures may prosper in Victoria.

The Victorians naturally deny that the cost of coal has much to do with the question. The French manufacturers, they point out, with dearer coal, but with cheaper labour, have in many branches of trade beaten the English out of common markets, but then under Protection there is no chance of cheap labour in Victoria.

Writing for the Englishmen of Old England, it is not necessary for me to defend Free Trade by any arguments. As far as we in our island are concerned, it is so manifestly to the pocket interest of almost all of us, and at the same time, on account of the minuteness of our territory, so little dangerous politically, that for Britain there can be no fear of a deliberate relapse into Protection.

The American argument in favour of Prohibition is in the main, it will be seen, political; the economical objections being admitted, but outweighed. Our action in the matter of our postal contracts, and in the case of the Factory Acts, at all events shows that we are not ourselves invariably averse to distinguish between the political and the economical aspect of certain questions.

My duty has been to chronicle what is said and thought upon the matter in our various plantations. One thing at least is clear that even if the opinions I have recorded be as ridiculous when applied to Australia or America as they would be when applied to England, they are not supported by a selfish clique, but rest upon the generosity and self-sacrifice of a majority of the population.*

Since this chapter was written New South Wales has adopted Free Trade.

CHAPTER VII.

LABOUR.

SIDE by side with the unselfish Protectionism of the diggers, there flourishes among the artisans of the Australias a self. interested desire for non-intercourse with the outside world.

In America, the working men, themselves almost without exception immigrants, though powerful in various States from holding the balance of parties, have never as yet been able to make their voices heard in the Federal Congress. In the chief Australian colonies, on the other hand, the artisans have more than any other class, the possession of political power. Throughout the world the grievance of the working classes lies in the fact that, while trade and profits have increased enormously within the last few years, true as distinguished from nominal wages have not risen. It is even doubtful whether the American or British handicraftsman can now live in such comfort as he could make sure of a few years back: it is certain that agricultural labourers in the south of England are worse off than they were ten years ago, although the depreciation of gold prevents us from accurately gauging their true position. In Victoria and New South Wales, and in the States of Wisconsin, Illinois, and Missouri, where the artisans possess some share of power, they have set about the attempt to remedy by law the grievance under which they suffer. In the American States, where the suppression of immigration seems almost impossible, their interference takes the shape of eight-hour bills, and exclusion of coloured labourers. There is no trades-union in America which will admit to membership a Chinaman, or even a mulatto. In Victoria and New South Wales, however, it is not difficult quietly to put a check upon the importation of foreign labour.

The vast distance from Europe makes the unaided immigration of artisans extremely rare; and since the democrats have beer in power the funds for assisted immigration have been withheld, and the Chinese influx all but forbidden, while manifestoes against the ordinary European immigration have repeatedly been published at Sydney by the Council of the Associated Trades.

The Sydney operatives have always taken a leading part in opposition to immigration, from the time when they founded the Anti-Transportation Committee up to the present day. In 1847, a natural and proper wish to prevent the artificial depression of wages was at the bottom of the anti-transportation movement, although the arguments made use of in the petition to the Queen were of the most general character; and Sydney mechanics, many of them free immigrants themselves, say that there is no difference of principle between the introduction of free or assisted immigrants and that of convicts.

If we look merely to the temporary results of the policy of the Australian artisans, we shall find it hard to deny that their acts are calculated momentarily to increase their material pros perity; so far they may be selfish, but they are not blind. Admitting that wages depend on the ratio of capital to population. the Australians assert that, with them, population increases faster than capital, and that hindering immigration will restore the balance. Prudential checks on population are useless, they say, in face of Irish immigration. At the same time, it is clear that, from the discouragement of immigration and limitation to eight hours of the daily toil, there results an exceptional scarcity of labour, which cramps the development of the country, and causes a depression in trade which must soon diminish the wage-fund, and re-act upon the working men. It is unfortunately the fact, that colonial artisans do not sufficiently bear in mind the distinction between real and nominal wages, but are easily caught by the show of an extra few shillings a week, even though the purchasing power of each shilling be diminished by the change. When looked into, "higher wages" often mean that the labourer, instead of starving upon ten shillings a week, is to starve upor twenty.

As regards the future, contrasted with the temporary condition

of the Australian labourer, there is no disguising the fact that mere exclusion of immigration will not in the long run avail him. It might, of course, be urged that immigration is, even in America, a small matter by the side of the natural increase of the people, and that to shut out the immigrant is but one of many checks to population; but in Australia the natural increase is not so great as in a young country might be expected. The men so largely outnumber the women in Australia, that even early marriages and large families cannot make the birth-rate very high, and fertile land being at present still to be obtained at first hand, the new agricultural districts swallow up the natural increase of the population. Still, important as is immigration at this moment, ultimately through the influx of women-to which the democrats are not opposed-or, more slowly, by the effort of nature to restore the balance of the sexes, the rate of natural increase will become far greater in Australia. Ultimately, there can be no doubt, if the Australian labourer continues to retain his present standard of comfort, prudential checks upon the birth of children will be requisite to maintain the present ratio of capital to population.

Owing to the comparatively high prices fixed for agricultural land in the three south-eastern colonies of Australia, the abundance of unoccupied tracts has not hitherto had that influence on wages in Australia which it appears to have exercised in America; but under the democratic amendments of the existing free selection system, wages will probably again rise in the colonies, to be once more reduced by immigration, or, if the democracy gains the day, more slowly lowered by the natural increase of the population.

In places where competition has reduced the reward of labour to the lowest amount consistent with the efficiency of the work, compulsory restriction of the hours of toil must evidently be an unmixed benefit to the labourer, until carried to the point at which it destroys the trade in which he is engaged. In America and Australia, however, where the labourer has a margin of luxuries which can be cut down, and where the manufacturers are still to some extent competing with European rivals, restriction of hours puts them at a disadvantage with the capitalists of the old world, and, reducing their profits, tends also to diminish