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Paper read at the Royal Colonial Institute, February, 1897.

So many papers on various questions connected with Australia have been addressed to the Royal Colonial Institute, that it seemed to me that it would be more useful to discuss some of the questions of which I made a special study during the time recently spent in Australia, than if I attempted to give a general review of the position there, which many of you are much more competent to do than myself.

AUSTRALIAN DEFENCES.

The first question to which my attention was devoted was that of Defence. I travelled to Australia by way of Canada, in order to see the naval station of Esquimault, the defences of which were being completed. It is interesting to note that the nucleus of the garrison for this coaling station is furnished from the Royal Marines, but is paid by the Dominion Government the only instance in which this system obtains, though, for reasons which will be given later on, it might be usefully imitated in the case of Thursday Island and King George's Sound. I should like also 197