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About The Conservative (Nebraska City, Neb.) 1898-1902 | View Entire Issue (Feb. 21, 1901)
r Conservative * iii recent years in the export of dairy produce , and hope is placed in the future shipment abroad of fruit and wine. But for some time to come the chief article of export will have to be wheat. Eight Hour Movement. to Australia did not assume largo proportions until after the discovery of gold in 1851. That discov ery naturally attracted the artisan of the United Kingdom rather than the agricultural laborer ; for the latter lacked.not only the spirit of adventure but also the means of paying the high cost of the long ocean voyage. For a time , the various colonies spent consider able sums in advancing to immigrants a part of the cost of the journey. But with the subsidence of the gold excite ment came a period of severe industrial depression ; state aid to immigration was curtailed , and immigration , assisted as well as unassisted , fell off rapidly. At the same time the mining population drifted back to the capital cities , which , by 1861 , came to contain about twenty- two per cent of the total population. This concentration of the people gave rise to much suffering , which , in towns , brough forth the oight-hour-movement , and taught the city laboring man to organize and use his political power for the purpose of obtaining legislation or administrative rulings which were to his interest. Thus the movement for an eight-hour day was greatly advanced when the various governments , directly and indirectly the largest single em ployers of labor , were induced to insert the eight-hour clause in all contracts for public works. From 1861 to 1875 , the concentration of the people in the capital cities re- remained unchanged ; and under the inflow of foreign capital , which took place in 1875 to 1892 , it was still further increased. In the decade ending with 1891 , Sydney absorbed over fifty per cent of the immigration into New South Wales ; and Melbourne provided lodge ment for seventy-five per cent of the in crease of population in Victoria. In 1891 not less than and , forty-two one- half per cent of the population of Aus tralasia was living in cities of eight thous and and more inhabitants , as against twenty-nine per cent in the Unitec States. Yet , judged by the develop ment of mining and manufacture , the industries which give rise to large cities Australasia should not have anything like so largo on urban population as have the Unite'd States. From 1861 to 1880 , Australasia absorbed about fourteen per cent of the immigra tion from the United Kingdom ports But in the early eighties , while the wages of farm , laborers and navvies in Australasia were rising , and the farmers were complaining more and more loudlj of the dearth of farm hands , the prob em of the unemployed became so prom- nent in the capital cities as to engage ho serious attention of the various governments. The trades unions at the same time sent agents to Great Britain o warn intending emigrants against Australasia ; and the percentage of emi gration to that country fell to less than ive per cent in 1898 and the subsequent years. At the same time the birth rate among married women of child-bearing age fell off by one-third , the marriage rate declined by sixteen per cent , and ; he proportion of illegitimate births in creased by fifty per cent. These figures all tell the same story ; that under the present distribution of the people be- Aveen country and city , the average man finds it increasingly difficult to support a family. Exaggerated Reports. One hears and reads much of the un limited resources of Australasia ; but closer inspection shows that so far at Least as the Australasian continent is con cerned , the industries which yield unusual returns , sheep grazing and mining , either will support only a com paratively small population or will admit little further extension. The great mass of the people , in the long run , will have to look for a living to the cultivation of resources that , at best , are moderate. It was only the accident of a large and long-continued inflow of capital that concealed this fact for a considerable period of time. So long as the general level of profits and wages in Australia depended not upon the resources of climate and soil , but upon the rate at which borrowed capital flowed in , it mattered not that the great industrial enterprises of the state among which the railways were the most important were managed with great inefficiency and wastefulness. But , when the colonies were called to reliance upon their own resources , the management of the railways became the central factor in the industrial and commercial situation. On the other hand , the forces arrayed against reform and improvement in the administration of the railway department represented so many local and class interests that the railways were seriously incapacitat ed for the work of putting the people on the land , For example , since 188b the problem of the unemployed in Syd ney has been a most serious problem in New South Wales , yet dtfwn to the close of 1891 the railway department has done nothing toward putting the farmer ii the interior of New South Wales in the position of competing in Sydney witl the ocean-borne produce of the fanners of New Zealand , Victoria and Soutl Australia. And all this time Ne\\ South Wales was importing two-fifths of the wheat it consumed , one-half of the potatoes and oats , and largo pro portions of the other products of the soil. In the last part of 1891 wore made reductions in rates that were large when neasured by Australian standards , but comparatively small when measured by what has been attained in the United States. And it was only the falling off n the net immigration from an annual average of 25,000 people in the years previous to 1886 to about 8000 people a year since 1893 that prevented the prob- .em of the unemployed from becoming even more serious than it actually be came. In Victoria all railway charges were raised in 1892 by five per cent to ton ; excepting only those on agricul tural produce which remained station ary. And in the years 1898 to 1900 the colony lost by excess of emigration over immigration not less than 120,000 people ple , mostly ablebodied men. Since 1884 South Australia has had a net emigration of 40,000 people. Its total population is but 870,000 , and today it cultivates not as much land as it culti vated in 1881. ( Concluded next week. ) VICTORIA'S LOVE OF TREES. No portion of the Queen's wide domain was more prized by her than the splendid Ballochbuie forest on her Dee- side estate. In their shady depths she delighted to drive , and but for her the superb Scots firs , of which she was so proud , would not now be in existence. That little story is worth telling. One summer afternoon she sat in the drawing room reading. The windows were open , for the sun was warm. Suddenly there came to her ear 'the clanging of the woodman's hatchet and the rasping , of his saw. She realized that slaughter was going forward among the trees near by , and she caused immediate inquiry to be made. The messenger returned with the news that a firm of local wood mer chants had purchased the forest , and were proceeding to clear it. The Queen sent for the purchaser "without a mom ent's hesitation , and in no time a bargain was struck. Balloohbuie , and its million firs , passed into her possession. The woodman's notch had already marked out the "kings of the forest" for im mediate "execution , " but , by the Queen's orders , the gaping wounds in the timber were healed , the letters "V. R. " being branded on them. Till within a decade ago her Majesty delighted in having afternoon tea made gypsy fash ion under the giant branches of the favorite firs , several of which she called by name. This love of trees was a characteristic of the Queen which ad vancing age seemed but to intensify. "Royal" firs beautify many a nook and corner of the domain , and eacli domestic or national .event of outstanding im portance was wont to entail the cere mony of tree-planting as certainly as it meant the building of a great bonfire on the rugged brow of Oraiggowan Lon don Telegraph. .
