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 amounted to £82,000, making the actual cost of primary instruction £758,000. There are a university and a technical college in Sydney.

Finance.—The revenue of the state is derived from four main sources, viz. taxation; sale and lease of lands; earnings of railways, tramways and other services; and share of surplus revenue returned by the commonwealth. During 1906 the income derived under each of these heads was: from taxation £1,297,776; from lands £1,729,887; from railways and other services £5,856,826; from commonwealth £2,742,770; these with miscellaneous collections to the amount of £655,823 made up a total revenue of £12,283,082. The direct taxation is represented by a tax of one penny in the pound on the unimproved value of land, sixpence in the pound on the annual income derived in the state from all sources, except the use and occupation of land and improvements thereon. There are also various stamp duties. The land revenue is derived partly from the alienation of the public estate, either absolutely or under conditions, but mainly from the occupation of the public lands. There is also a small revenue from mining lands, timber licences, &c. The state still holds 146 million acres out of a total of 196 million acres, having alienated about 50 million acres. The principal heads of expenditure were: interest and charges on public debt, £3,291,059; public instruction, £911,177; working expenses of railways and tramways, £2,954,777; other services working expenses, £208,242; other services, £3,900,726. The public debt in 1906 was £85,641,734, equal to £56, 11s. per inhabitant; the great proportion of this debt has been incurred for works that are revenue producing, only about £11,000,000 was not so expended. Of the total debt in 1903 about £66,000,000 was held in London. The net return from public works in excess of expenditure in 1906 amounted to nearly 3% on the whole public debt, and the interest paid averages 3·6%.

Administration.—The political constitution of New South Wales is that of a self-governing British colony, and rests on the provisions of the Constitution Act. The governor is appointed by the crown, the term of office being generally for five years, and the salary £5000. The governor is the official medium of communication between the colonial government and the secretary for the colonies, but at the same time the colony maintains its own agent-general in London, who not only sees to all its commercial business but communicates with the colonial office. The powers of the state parliament have been since 1901 restricted by the transfer of certain powers to the commonwealth of Australia. In the legislative assembly there are 90 members. The principle adopted in distributing the representation is that of equal electoral districts, modified in practice by a preference given to the distant and rural constituencies at the cost of the metropolitan electorates. The suffrage qualification is a residence of twelve months and the attainment of the age of 21 years. Women are entitled to the franchise: there are the usual restrictions in regard to the pauper and criminal classes. An elector has only one vote, which is attached to the district in which he resides. Members of the Legislative Assembly are allowed a salary of £300 a year. There were in 1906 about 700,000 electors. Each electoral district returns one member. The Legislative Council consists of persons nominated for life by the governor, acting on the advice of the Executive Council; the number of members is not fixed by law but in 1906 it was 55. Parliaments are triennial. Local government was extended in 1905 and 1906 to the whole state, excepting the sparsely populated western division; formerly it was confined to an area of about 2800 sq. m. There are altogether about 55,000 m. of road communications, but not more than 15,000 m. are properly formed. The various local bodies are municipalities or shires, the former is the term applied to closely peopled areas of small extent endowed with complete local government, and the latter is the designation of the more extensive districts, thinly peopled, to which a less complete system of local government has been granted.

Federal Capital.—In 1908 the Seat of Government Act provided that the federal territory and capital of Australia should be in the Yass-Canberra district of New South Wales, and that the territory should have an area of not less than 900 sq. m. and easy access to the sea. In 1909 a Board appointed to consider the several possible sites within this district reported in favour of Canberra, on the Molonglo river, near Queanbeyan, as the site for the new city, and the basins of the Molonglo, Queanbeyan and Cotter rivers were indicated as suitable to form the federal territory. Jervis Bay was recommended as offering a site for a port for the territory. Bills were passed in 1909 by the legislative assembly of New South Wales and by the federal parliament, transferring this territory to the federation.

Agriculture.—New South Wales might be described as essentially a pastoral country, and the cultivation of the soil has always been secondary to stock-raising. But the predominance of the pastoral industry is not by any means so marked as it was even as late as the last decade of the 19th century. The want of progress in agriculture was not to be ascribed to defects of climate or soil, but chiefly to the great distance of Australia from the markets of the world. This difficulty has, for the most part, been removed by the establishment of numerous important lines of steamers trading between Australia and Europe, and recent years have therefore seen considerable expansion in all forms of agriculture.

In 1882 the area of land under cultivation was 733,582 acres, which is slightly less than 1 acre per inhabitant. In 1900 the total area under cultivation was 2,439,639 acres, and in 1906 it had risen to 2,838,081 acres, which is a little short of 2 acres per inhabitant.

The area devoted to each of the principal crops was as follows:— The average yield per acre of crops may be set down as follows:— The total value of production in the year 1906 may be set down at £6,543,000, which works out at £2, 6s. 1d. per acre.

Although the coastal districts are still important, as the crops yielding the largest returns per acre are grown there, as regards the total area under crop these districts are of much less importance compared with the whole state than formerly.

The area under crop on the coast districts is about 320,000 acres; on the tablelands 375,000 acres; on the western slopes, 1,100,000 acres; the Riverina district, 750,000 acres; the western plains, chiefly in the central portion, 270,000 acres; and less than 20,000 acres in the western division, which comprises nearly half the total area of the state. The soil in that part of the country is, for the most part, suitable for cultivation, and there are large areas of rich land, but the rainfall is too light and irregular for the purpose of agriculture.

There were 76,000 occupiers of rural holdings in 1905, and the area occupied by them, exclusive of lands leased from the state, is 48,081,000 acres. The great majority, 80% in 1905, of occupiers are freeholders; the practice of renting farm lands is not followed to any considerable extent, except in the dairying lands on the coast district. New South Wales took up its position amongst wheat-exporting countries in 1900; the bulk of the grain exported goes to the United Kingdom. Hay crops and maize rank next in importance to wheat. The cultivation of fruit is receiving increased attention, but the growing of sugar cane and tobacco and the production of wine, until recently so promising, are, if not declining, at least stationary, in spite of the suitability of the soil of many districts for these crops.

Grazing and Dairying.—The grazing industry still holds a chief place amongst the productive industries of the state. In 1906 the number of horses was 507,000; of sheep, 40,000,000; of cattle, 2,340,000; and swine, 311,000. There were considerable losses of sheep in 1902 owing to the drought of that year, but the flocks in 1906 were of better quality than at any previous period and little short of the number of 1898. The vast majority of the sheep are of the merino breed, but there are about a million long-woolled sheep and between two and three million cross-bred. Dairying made very great strides in the ten years preceding 1906, and ranks as one of the great industries of the state. There were 644,000 dairy cows in 1906, and the numbers are increasing year by year. The production of wool was 300,000,000 ℔, as in the grease; tallow, 493,000 cwt.; butter, 500,000 cwt.; cheese, 42,000 cwt.; and bacon and hams, 110,000 cwt.

Mining.—The mining industry has made great strides. In 1905 there were about 38,000 men engaged in the various mines, besides 3300 employed in smelting. Of these, 10,700 were employed in gold-mining; in coal-mining there were 14,100; silver, 7100; tin, 2750, and copper, 1850. The value of mining machinery may be approximately set down at £2,900,000. The following summary shows the value of the various minerals won in 1905. It is impossible to separate the values of silver and lead contained in the ore obtained at Broken Hill; the two metals are therefore shown together.