Page:Statesman's Year-Book 1871.djvu/753

 AREA AND POPULATION. 7 I 7

The greater part of the revenue of Queensland is produced by customs duties, land sales, and rents of public lands; while the chief expenditure is for works of general utility, and for aids to immigration. The customs revenue for 18G8 amounted to 337,228/., exceeding that of 1867 by 50,935/. In 18G5, the customs yielded 195,540/., against 153,341/. for 1864, the increase being 42,199/., or at the rate of 27 per cent.

The public debt of the colony amounted, on December 31, 1868, to the sum of 3,459,686/., of which sum 3,021,186/. was created by loans, and 438,500/. under 'The Treasury Bills Act of 1866,' viz., 30 Victoria, No. 8, and 30 Victoria, No. 10. The interest on the loans amounted to 181,269/., and on the Treasury Bills to the sum of 43,850/. ; in all 225,119/., in the year 1868.

Area and Population.

The colony of Queensland comprises the whole north-eastern portion of the Australian continent. It also includes, in the terms of Her Majesty's Letters Patent, ' all and every the adjacent islands, their members and appurtenances, in the Pacific Ocean and in the Gulf of Carpentaria.'

It appears from the statistical register of Queensland for 1861, that the Surveyor-General has made a careful calculation of the present area of the colony ; and the result is, in round numbers, as follows : —

Area of Queensland,

Square miles

East of longitude 141° 560,000

Between 141° and 138° 118,600

Total 678,600

Occupied Country.

Square miles Approxinrat-e area of country occupied by pastoral stations 195,000

The vast territory thus defined, equal in size to one-fifth of the whole of Europe, formed a part of New South Wales until it was erected into a separate eolony, under the name of Queensland, by an order of Her Majesty in Council, which took effect on December 10, 1859, upon the arrival of the first governor, Sir G. F. Bowen.

The population amounted to 24,870 on December 31, 1859 ; to 29,074 on December 31,1860, to 34,367 at the same date in 1861, and to 45,077 on December 31, 1862. The last enumeration of December 31, 1868, showed that the colony had then a pojrulation of 107,427, of whom 65,843 males, and 41,584 females.