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 The first administration lasted only for a few weeks, and it was some years before constitutional government worked smoothly. The powers of the new parliament were utilized for extending representative institutions. Vote by ballot was introduced; the number of members in the assembly was increased to 80, and the franchise was granted to every adult male after six months’ residence in any electoral area. Meanwhile the material progress, of the colony was unchecked. A census taken at the end of 1857 showed that the population of Sydney was, including the suburbs, 81,327. Telegraphic communication was established between Sydney, Melbourne, Adelaide and Tasmania in 1859; and during the same year the Moreton Bay district was separated from New South Wales and was constituted the colony of Queensland.

During the regime of Sir John Young, afterwards Lord Lisgar, who succeeded Sir William Denison in 1861, several important events occurred. The land policy of previous governments was entirely revised, and the Land Bill, framed by Sir John Robertson, introduced the principle of deferred payments for the purchase of crown lands,

and made residence and cultivation, rather than a sufficient price, the object to be sought by the crown in alienating the public estate. This measure, passed with great difficulty and by bringing considerable pressure to bear upon the nominated council, was the outcome of a lengthened agitation throughout the Australian colonies, and was followed by similar legislation in all of them. It was during the governorship of Sir John Young that the distinction between the descendants of convicts and the descendants of free settlers, hitherto maintained with great strictness, was finally abandoned. In 1862 the agitation against the Chinese assumed importance, and the attitude of the miners at Lambing Flat was so threatening that a large force, military and police, was despatched to that goldfield in order to protect the Chinamen from ill-treatment by the miners. At this time, the only drawback to the general progress and prosperity of the country was the recrudescence of bushranging, or robbery under arms, in the country districts. This crime, originally confined to runaway convicts, was now committed by young men born in the colony, familiar with its mountains and forests, who were good horsemen and excellent shots. It was not until a large number of lives had been sacrificed, and many bushrangers brought to the scaffold, that the offence was thoroughly stamped out in New South Wales, only to reappear some years afterwards in Victoria under somewhat similar conditions.

The earl of Belmore became governor in 1868, and it was during his first year of office that H.R.H. the duke of Edinburgh visited the colony in command of the “Galatea.” An attempt made upon his life, during a picnic at Clontarf, caused great excitement throughout Australia, and his assailant, a man named O’Farrell, was hanged. A measure which virtually made primary education free, compulsory and unsectarian came into operation. A census taken in 1871 showed that the population was 503,981; the revenue, £2,908,155; the expenditure, £3,006,576; the imports, £9,609,508; and the exports, £11,245,032. Sir Hercules Robinson, afterwards Lord Rosmead, was sworn in as governor in 1872. During his rule, which lasted till 1879, the Fiji Islands were annexed; telegraphic communication with England and mail communication with the United States were established; and the long series of political struggles, which prevented any administration from remaining in office long enough to develop its policy, was brought to an end by a coalition between Sir Henry Parkes and Sir John Robertson. Lord Augustus Loftus became governor in 1879, in time to inaugurate the first International Exhibition ever held in Australia. The census taken during the following year gave the population of the colony as 751,468, of whom 411,149 were males and 340,319 females. The railway to Melbourne was completed in 1880; and in 1883 valuable deposits of silver were discovered at Broken Hill. In 1885 the Hon. W. B. Dalley, who was acting Premier during the absence through ill-health of Sir Alexander Stuart, made to the British government the offer of a contingent of the armed forces of New South Wales to aid the Imperial troops in the Sudan. The offer was accepted; the contingent left Sydney in March 1885, on board the “Iberia” and “Australasian,” and for the first time a British colony sent its armed forces outside its own boundaries to fight on behalf of the mother-country. In July of the same year Dr Moran, the Roman Catholic archbishop of Sydney, became the first Australasian cardinal. Lord Carrington, who was appointed governor in 1888, opened the railway to Queensland, and during the same year the centenary of the colony was celebrated. The agitation against the Chinese, always more or less existent, became intense, and the government forcibly prevented the Chinese passengers of four ships from landing, and passed laws which practically prohibit the immigration of Chinese.

In 1889 the premier, Sir Henry Parkes, gave in his adhesion to the movement for Australasian federation, and New South Wales was represented at the first conference held at Melbourne in the beginning of 1890. Lord Jersey assumed office on the 15th of January 1891, and a few weeks afterwards the conference to consider the question of federating the Australian colonies was held at Sydney, and the great strike, which at one time had threatened to paralyse the trade of the colony, came to an end. A board of arbitration and conciliation to hear and determine labour questions and disputes was formed, and by later legislation its powers have been strengthened. (For the labour legislation of the state, see .) A census taken on the 5th of April 1891 showed that the population was 1,134,207, of whom the aborigines numbered 7705 and the Chinese 12,781. In 1893 a financial crisis resulted in the suspension of ten banks; but with two exceptions they were reconstructed, and by the following year the effects of the depression had passed away. Federation was not so popular in New South Wales as in the neighbouring colonies, and no progress was made between 1891 and 1894, although Sir Henry Parkes, who was at that time in opposition, brought the question before the legislature. The Rt. Hon. Sir William Duff, who followed Lord Jersey as governor, died at Sydney in 1895, and was succeeded by Lord Hampden. In 1896 a conference of Australian premiers was held at Sydney to consider the question of federation. The then Premier, Mr Reid, was rather lukewarm, as he considered that the free-trade policy of New South Wales would be overridden by its protectionist neighbours and its metropolitan position interfered with. But his hand was to a great extent forced by a People’s Federation Convention held at Bathurst, and in the early portion of 1897 delegates from New South Wales met those from all the other colonies, except Queensland, at Adelaide, and drafted the constitution, which with some few modifications eventually became law. The visit of the Australian premiers to England on the occasion of Queen Victoria’s Diamond Jubilee gave an additional impetus to federation, and in September 1897 the convention reassembled in Sydney and discussed the modifications in the constitution which had been suggested in the local parliaments. In January 1898 the bill was finally agreed to and submitted to a popular referendum of the inhabitants of each colony. Those of Victoria, South Australia and Tasmania agreed to the measure; but the majority in New South Wales, 5458, was not sufficient to carry the bill. The local parliament subsequently suggested certain amendments, one of them being that Sydney should be the federal capital. The general election returned a majority pledged to federation, and after some opposition to the federal Bill by the legislative council it was again referred to the electors of the colony and agreed to by them, 107,420 votes being recorded in its favour, and 82,741 against it. One of the provisions of the bill as finally carried was that the federal metropolis, although in New South Wales, should be more than 100 m. from Sydney. The Enabling Bill passed through all its stages in the British parliament during the summer of 1900, all the Australian colonies assenting to its provisions; and on the 1st of January 1901 Lord Hopetoun, the governor-general of Australia, and the federal ministry, of which the premier, Mr Barton, and Sir